Lubbock runs four Citizen Convenience Stations, and this is the Northside one, on Municipal Drive. The distinction matters more than it sounds, because the four sites do not all take the same things.

There is no charge at the gate, though that is not quite the same as free: the service is bundled into the solid waste fee already on your city utility bill. The corollary is that only City of Lubbock Solid Waste utility customers may use it, and only for material generated at their own home. Bring a driver's license showing a Lubbock address, or a current city utility bill with matching identification.

Loads are limited by shape rather than weight, since nothing is weighed here. Your load must travel in a passenger car, pickup or trailer of six feet or less, and should not exceed the volume of a pickup bed. Cover or tarp it on the way over.

The station takes large bulky items the dumpster lids will not close over - mattresses, furniture, garage doors, uncut tree limbs - along with yard debris, used motor oil and antifreeze under five gallons, used oil filters, and post-consumer recyclables such as paper and aluminum. Passenger tires are accepted off the rim, capped at four per address per year across all four stations combined.

What it does not take is the thing to check before you drive over. Paint and other household hazardous waste go to the Southside station at 1631 84th Street, not here, and so does household cooking grease. Commercial waste and contractor loads are refused outright under state law. Do not leave anything outside the fence after hours either - the city treats that as illegal dumping. Note that the city's Citizen Convenience Stations page carries the access rules but no opening hours for the individual sites, so ring Solid Waste on 806-775-2495 before setting out.