Sort for donation before you sort for disposal
A box of dry, intact books may interest a library sale, a school, or a secondhand shop. Call and ask what they refuse. Encyclopedias, musty paper, and books with missing covers are common refusals. Do not leave boxes of books outside a closed donation door. Rain ruins them, and then they are your waste anyway. Books that are wet, moldy, or contaminated with pest droppings should not be donated and should not sit in the house spreading mold. Bag those and ask the disposal site whether they are ordinary trash. Clean paperback and hardcover paper is sometimes accepted as mixed paper recycling, and sometimes it is not, because of the glue and the covers. Ask the hauler or the site. Do not put books in a bottle cart and hope the sort line wants them.
Weight is the practical problem
Paper is dense. A carton of books that you can slide across the floor may be more than you should lift into a truck. Use small boxes, leave a handhold, and make more trips from the door to the bed. Do not use a single trash bag. The bag will tear, and the books will swell if they get damp. Keep donation boxes separate from moldy boxes so a leaking mildew carton does not ruin the giveaway pile. If you are hauling both, load the trash books where they cannot drip on the donation boxes. A site that takes mixed paper will still refuse paper that is wet. Describe the condition honestly at the scale house.
Unload into the stream you named
At a donation stop, stack boxes where staff ask and take back anything they reject. At the disposal site, put recyclable paper only in the paper bay if the attendant confirms books are allowed. Otherwise the books go in the trash bay as you were told. Do not dump a box of hardcovers into the cardboard cage. Covers, glue, and dust jackets are contamination there. Break the empty cardboard down and recycle it only if it is dry and clean. If a box breaks at the bay, pick up every book. A paperback left on the scale lane is still your load.
Before you go
- Offer dry, intact books to a donation site that has agreed to take them.
- Bag moldy or ruined books and ask whether they are trash.
- Pack the haul in small boxes you can lift.
- Unload paper and trash only in the bays the attendant confirms.
Leaving donation boxes in the rain outside a library that was not expecting them.
Questions people ask
Are textbooks recyclable as office paper?
Ask the program. Coated covers and glued bindings mean many paper bins refuse them. If the answer is no, use the trash path the site gave you.
Can I burn old books in a backyard pit?
No. Take unwanted books to a donation site or the disposal stream that accepts them. Open burning is not a disposal plan for a household library.
Search Dumpmapper by ZIP code or city, then call the site before you load the truck. Hours and accepted materials change.