The City of Hamilton Bulk Waste Collection Facility and Burn Site is at 1099 East State Highway 22. That address is worth checking against whatever you have written down, because the site is easy to confuse with other city premises and a wrong turn out here costs real time.

Nothing about this facility works on a turn-up-and-pay basis, and that is the single most important thing to understand. Access requires a Bulk Waste Debris window sticker costing $30.00 for the calendar year, and stickers are sold only at Hamilton City Hall during ordinary office hours. To buy one you must show proof of a City of Hamilton residential water utility account together with a matching photo ID. A second sticker for another vehicle costs the same again. Arriving without one means being refused, and you cannot buy one at the gate.

The sticker is admission, not disposal. On top of it the city charges by what you arrive in, not by weight. A car, van or SUV pays $10.00. A pickup loaded level with the bed pays $15.00, rising to $30.00 if the load sits above the bed line. Trailers are priced by size: $30.00 for a 4x6 or 4x8, $40.00 for a 5x10 through 5x14, $55.00 for a 5x16 through 5x20, and $70.00 for a 6x16 through 6x20.

Two multipliers catch people out. Any trailer with sidewalls is charged double, as is any dump trailer. And where a vehicle and a trailer are both loaded, each is charged and the two are added together.

Payment is cash or cheque only. City Hall is on (254) 386-8116, extension 0.

Gate times are narrow: 8.00 a.m. until noon Tuesday to Friday, plus the first and third Saturday of each month, same morning hours.

Brush, limbs, leaves and grass clippings are taken, cut to lengths under 10 feet, with no stumps, bags emptied and removed, and no more than a pickup-bed-sized pile per day. Furniture, sinks, mattresses, water heaters, air-conditioning units and appliances are accepted; carpet must be cut into strips under 4 feet, rolled and tied; drywall and lumber under 4 feet and roughly 50 lbs.

Refused: ordinary household rubbish, tyres, batteries, auto parts, pressurised tanks, liquids, oil, paint and hazardous materials. City residents only, never commercial.