How to get rid of a TV in Indianapolis

The short answer

The minimum visit is $75, so a single set bills at $75 on its own. Pair it with the stand and it is $68 + $96 = $164. Two sets from different rooms is $68 + $62 = $130.

You cannot put it in the trash

Indiana restricts televisions and computer equipment from household waste, and the detail gets updated periodically, so check the current state and county guidance rather than relying on a neighbor's recollection.

Practically, across Marion County and the doughnut counties, the effect is the same: a TV is not a curb item. Your routes are a collection event, a permanent drop-off site if one is operating near you, a retailer take-back if one applies, or a scheduled pickup.

Do not be the person who puts a set out anyway. It sits there, it does not get collected, and by the second week someone has broken the screen, which converts a straightforward removal into a glass cleanup.

The three ages of television in an Indianapolis house

The tube set. Still in garages, basements and spare rooms across Irvington, Windsor Park, Martindale-Brightwood, Beech Grove and Speedway. A 27-inch CRT weighs around a hundred pounds and the glass is leaded. This is the one to have collected rather than carried down a basement stair on your own.

The projection monster. Bought in the early 2000s, usually for football, installed in a finished lower level in Nora, Castleton, Lawrence or Franklin Township, and never moved since. Between 150 and 250 pounds, particleboard cabinet, no handles, and the family members who carried it down there have since moved to Fishers.

The flat panel. Light, easy, and almost always replaced rather than repaired. The 2010s sets coming out of houses now are usually still working — they are just smaller than what replaced them, and nobody wants a second-hand 40-inch television.

All three are priced by size, not by type. A 65-inch-plus projection set is $73.

Wall mounts and what comes with them

If the set is on a wall bracket, decide before pickup whether the bracket is staying. Taking it off leaves lag-bolt holes in the drywall, and in an older Indianapolis house with plaster-and-lath walls those holes are bigger and messier than in modern drywall.

Also worth planning: in a lot of 1920s living rooms the television went on the wall above a decommissioned fireplace, because that is the only wall without a window or a doorway. Getting a large panel down from above a mantel is a two-person job with a clear floor, not something to attempt while holding a screwdriver.

The set comes down as part of the pickup. The bracket, the cable run and the patching are separate decisions, and the patching is a drywall or plaster job.

Wipe it first

Smart televisions remember everything you signed into: streaming accounts, a Wi-Fi password, sometimes a payment method. Recycling a set is not the same as erasing it.

Before it leaves the house, run the factory reset from the settings menu and sign out of any accounts that offer a separate sign-out. Do the same for a streaming stick or console that is going with it. It takes five minutes and it closes off an entire category of problem.

For a tube set, there is nothing to wipe. Just do not break the screen.

Selling, donating and the honest odds

Flat panels under about six years old and over 50 inches do sell here, in spring and in late summer when students are furnishing rentals around Butler and the near west side. List it working, list the model, and expect to negotiate.

Smaller flat panels mostly do not sell. There are more of them than there are buyers.

Tube sets and projection sets do not sell and are not accepted by most charities. There is a small enthusiast market for certain CRTs among retro gamers, and if you have a well-kept trinitron it is worth ten minutes of research — but assume no.

Donation generally requires a working, reasonably recent flat panel with a remote. Call first. Turning up at a dock with a projection set in a pickup is a wasted trip and everyone there has seen it before.

Collection events versus a pickup

County and municipal electronics collections run around the metro and they are a sensible route for one modest set if you have a vehicle and a free Saturday. Check the current schedule and the accepted-items list first — most limit how many televisions per household, and some do not take projection sets at all.

They stop making sense the moment the set is large, is downstairs, or is one of several things you need gone. A projection TV loaded into a sedan by one person to queue at an event is not a plan; it is an injury with a date on it.

What the pickup includes

Two people, the truck, taking the set off the wall or out of the cabinet, the carry from whatever floor it is on — the lower level of a Castleton split-level, an upstairs bedroom in a Loccurbie townhouse, the back of a detached garage in Broad Ripple — loading, and the run to the correct recycling destination.

No stair fee, no weight fee, no separate recycling charge. And if the screen is already cracked, say so when you book: it is the same price, the crew simply handles it differently so there is no glass left on your floor.

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