How to get rid of stuff in Berlin

From the editor

What residents need to know

Where things go in Berlin

Every option in this guide, arranged by the thing you are getting rid of. A missing name is not a refusal. It means nobody has told us either way, which is worth asking about before you make the trip.

Berlin has no free kerbside collection, and putting furniture on the pavement is illegal dumping rather than a missed collection. The free routes are a Kieztag in your own neighbourhood, or 3 m³ at a Recyclinghof. BSR will carry it out of any floor for a fee.

Mattresses go the same way as furniture: a Kieztag, 3 m³ at a Recyclinghof, or the paid BSR collection. They count towards the same three cubic metres as everything else bulky.

Large appliances are free inside a paid BSR booking, up to eight, of which at most three white goods. They are also free at any Recyclinghof with no volume limit. And a shop with over 400 m² of electricals must take one back free when it delivers a new one.

Free at any Recyclinghof, with no volume limit at all. Anything under 25 cm can also be handed to a large electrical retailer with no purchase, which is a legal right rather than a courtesy.

Free at a Recyclinghof, free inside a paid BSR booking if bagged and labelled, and taken at Kieztage. What still works is worth donating instead: one social department store collects furniture from your home at no charge.

Only six of the fourteen Recyclinghöfe have a hazardous-waste counter, so the tip is the wrong mental model here. Twenty kilos per waste type per day is free; batteries and mercury are free at any quantity.

Nothing here takes it, and that is the finding rather than a gap in the research. Mixed construction and demolition waste is refused across the whole BSR network, the booked collection will not take Bauabfälle at all, and mineral rubble at a Recyclinghof is charged by the ten litres rather than counting towards your free three cubic metres. Berlin's household routes genuinely do not solve building waste; a container or a licensed carrier does.

The words Berlin uses

These are the terms on the city's own pages. They stay in the local language here for the same reason they do on a form: the English version will not get you to the right page.

Sperrmüll

Bulky household waste, and the name of BSR's booked collection. The word is the trap: in most cities it implies a free kerbside pile, and in Berlin it is a paid service that comes into your flat. Putting Sperrmüll on the street here is not a collection, it is illegal dumping.

Recyclinghof

Berlin's word for the municipal tip. Fourteen of them, 3 m³ of bulky waste free per vehicle. Not Wertstoffhof, which is what other German cities say and which returns nothing useful on BSR's site.

Kieztag

A BSR truck parked on a named square in your neighbourhood for five hours, free, with a swap market beside it you may take from. The design rule is that you come on foot or by bike; BSR asks you not to arrive by car. Dates move, so check the live page rather than trusting a printed list.

Kiez

Your immediate neighbourhood, smaller than a Bezirk and with no administrative boundary. It is the unit a Kieztag is organised around.

Bezirk

One of Berlin's twelve boroughs. Kieztag dates are published per Bezirk, and the Bezirksamt co-runs them with BSR.

Spargebühr

BSR's cheap tier for a booked collection: 50 euros for up to 5 m³, but only from the sixteenth working day. The standard tier is double for the same volume, and the only difference is how long you wait.

Halteverbot

A temporary no-parking zone. For a booked BSR collection you are responsible for providing twelve metres of truck parking within a hundred metres of the door, and for putting up the signs if that needs them. It is the obligation nobody expects.

Schadstoffe

Household hazardous waste: paints, solvents, chemicals, old medicines, waste oil. Only six of the fourteen Recyclinghöfe accept them, and twenty kilos per type per day is free.

NochMall

BSR's own second-hand department store in Reinickendorf, 2,500 m² of it. You can donate free at the door, but the collection service is charged, and you are not paid for what you give.

Entrümpelung

A paid house clearance. Worth knowing the rule behind the cheap quotes: a clearance firm may not use the free Recyclinghof route, because only the person who produced the waste, or private friends and relatives, may deliver it.

Things that catch people out

• Berlin has no free kerbside bulky collection. BSR's Sperrmüllabfuhr is a paid, booked service, and leaving the pile on the pavement is illegal dumping rather than a collection that failed.
• The cheap tier is a waiting game. Fifty euros for 5 m³ if you can wait past the sixteenth working day, a hundred for the same volume sooner, and the express tier buys less volume rather than more.
• A booked collection comes out of any floor, which is the part that justifies the fee. Above the seventh floor it needs a working lift.
• You provide the parking. Twelve metres of space within a hundred metres of the door, and the Halteverbot signs if that needs them.
• A Recyclinghof gives you 3 m³ of bulky waste free, but the limit is per vehicle rather than per person, and there is no partial unloading. BSR's own worked example has a whole load refused for being one cubic metre over.
• A Kieztag is the free route people miss: a truck on a square in your Kiez for five hours, a swap market you may take from, and waste advisers on site. Come on foot.
• Electricals and textiles ride along free inside a paid booking, up to eight large appliances of which at most three white goods.
• A paid clearance firm may not deliver your waste to a Recyclinghof for free. Only you, or private friends and relatives, may. That is why some cheap quotes end badly.
• BSR never subcontracts. Anyone at your door claiming to collect on BSR's behalf is not from BSR.

What it costs in Berlin

What each option charges, in its own words, with the date we last read it. We publish no price of our own: a number we typed would go stale before the sentence it came from did.

• Amsterdam 7 options·7 free·Checked 20 Aug 2026
• Barcelona 5 options·4 free·Checked 18 Aug 2026
• Lisbon 6 options·6 free·Checked 18 Aug 2026