What size dumpster for yard waste?
For a normal yard cleanup — limbs, brush, hedge trimmings, pine straw and leaves — a 10-yard can is usually enough, and a 15 or 20 yard is the right call for clearing an overgrown lot or taking down several trees. Green waste is bulky and light, so you run out of room long before you touch the tonnage allowance — unless there is dirt, sod or stumps in the pile, which changes the answer completely.
Sizing brush and limbs
10-yard — a season's worth of trimming: hedge and shrub cuttings, pine straw, leaves, a small tree taken down in sections. That is where most Pine Belt yard jobs land, and it is roughly three pickup loads.
15-yard — clearing a fence line, a badly overgrown side yard, or several trees' worth of limbs after a blow-through.
20-yard — clearing a lot, pulling out a run of privet or an old azalea bed with the edging and beds, or a landscaping tear-out where hardscape is coming with it.
Brush does not pack. Limbs cross and bridge and leave air behind them, so a can of whole branches is mostly nothing. Cut to length and lay them flat instead of pitching them in and you will fit close to twice as much — it is the cheapest thing you can do on a yard job.
Dirt, sod and stumps are a different job
Green waste is light; the ground it came out of is not. A cubic yard of damp topsoil runs well over a ton, and sod with the dirt still attached is worse. A quote in this market typically includes about 2 to 2.5 tons in total, so a few yards of soil is the entire allowance, and weight over it commonly runs $50 to $100 per ton off the landfill scale ticket.
Stumps and root balls are the other trap. Plenty of providers cap the size they will take or exclude them outright, because a root ball brings the dirt with it and does not break down at the tipping floor. Ask before you dig it out, not after it is sitting beside the driveway.
If the job is a bed regrade, a pool spoil pile or a driveway edge being reshaped, use the word 'dirt' when you ask for quotes. Soil loads get priced and sized differently, and a small can you can legally fill beats a big one you cannot load past the halfway mark.
When you should not rent a can at all
South Mississippi yards throw off a lot of green waste and most of it has a cheaper route. Cities in the Pine Belt generally run some form of curbside limb and yard-waste collection, and the counties run convenience sites — the rules vary on bundle length, bagging and what actually counts as yard waste, so call your city or county before you pay to haul brush anywhere.
After a named storm it changes again. Local governments here typically stand up a separate storm-debris pickup, and loading limbs into a rented can means paying for something that was about to be collected for nothing. Find out what has been announced before you order anything.
Burning is still normal on rural lots in Forrest, Perry and Lamar counties, but it is regulated and burn bans come and go with the weather. Check the Mississippi Forestry Commission's current status for your county before you light a pile.
And if the whole job is one pickup load of brush, it is one pickup load of brush — a can costs the same whether you fill it or not. Pine Belt Dumpsters is an information site for the Hattiesburg, Petal and Laurel area. We do not own trucks and we do not haul, so nothing here is an offer, a price or a delivery; the figures above are what this market charges, published so you know what to ask before you call anyone.
Get in front of local providers
We’re not a hauler and we don’t quote prices. Tell us what the job is and we’ll pass your request to local dumpster providers who can service it. A request for contact, not an order — nothing booked, nothing charged.
Keep reading
- How do you dispose of concrete? — Concrete disposal: why clean concrete usually goes to a crushing yard instead of the landfill, and how a small heavy-debris dumpster is loaded when it can't.
- Dumpster rental or a dump trailer? — Dumpster rental vs a dump trailer: what a towable trailer really holds, what hauling it to the landfill involves, and the point where a roll-off costs less.
- How do you get rid of a mattress? — Mattress disposal in Mississippi: the four ways an old mattress leaves a Pine Belt home, from store haul-away to bulky pickup, and why a dumpster rarely pays.
- What size dumpster do you actually need? — Dumpster sizes explained: what a 10, 15, 20 and 30 yard roll-off really holds, which jobs each one suits, and when going up a size beats paying for another can.
- What size dumpster do you need to tear out a deck? — Dumpster size for deck removal: when a small deck fits a 10-yard, why most raised decks need a 20, and how footings, composite boards and treated wood matter.
Delivering across the Pine Belt
Hattiesburg · Petal · Oak Grove · Purvis · Sumrall · Laurel · Ellisville · Columbia · Lumberton · Wiggins