The Mansfield Environmental Collection Center is not a landfill and it will not take a general load of household rubbish. It is the city's permanent household hazardous waste and electronics drop-off, run by Environmental Services out of the Mansfield Service Center at 616 S. Wisteria Street, and for the things it does accept it charges nothing at all.

The catch is the calendar rather than the price. The ECC opens on the second Saturday of each month from 10am to 3pm, plus the Thursday and Friday immediately before that Saturday, 3pm to 7pm. That is roughly three days a month, so a wasted trip here is easy to make. Proof of Mansfield residency is required at the gate and a driver's licence or a city water bill will do. Staff unload the vehicle themselves and ask you to stay in it, following the marked traffic flow.

What you can bring is broad: paint, cleaners, pool and lawn chemicals, motor oil and filters, cooking oil, batteries, fluorescent tubes and CFLs, and the full run of electronics from computers and printers to CRT, LCD and plasma televisions. The centre has more recently become a drop-off point for bulky home renovation debris too - discarded cabinets, drawers and shelving from DIY projects - on the same dates as the hazardous waste events, capped at a truck bed or an eight-foot trailer, and with an online form that must be printed and brought with you.

Two things catch people out. Businesses, contractors and industrial waste are refused outright, and that is a TCEQ requirement rather than city preference, so there is no arguing it at the gate. And the centre runs a Reuse Store where paint and chemicals in near-new condition are given away free to residents, which is worth a look before you buy a tin of anything. For general trash and construction debris you will need a commercial landfill instead; the city itself tells residents to ring ahead for rates elsewhere.