Bench neighborhoods like Depot Bench, Vista, and West Bench are full of 1950s and 60s brick ranches with detached garages and narrow alleys behind them. That's exactly the kind of layout where old tires pile up for years — a few from a car that got new ones, a few more from a project that never got finished — until the stack behind the garage becomes its own problem.

Tires don't go in your green cart or your regular trash, and they're not on the list of items Republic Services will take during a free bulky pickup either. That leaves most Bench homeowners with two real options: hauling a load to the Ada County Landfill themselves, or having someone pick it up.

What Changes the Cost and the Time

Not all tire piles are the same job. A handful of passenger tires sitting in an open driveway is a quick load. A stack of truck or tractor tires wedged into a tight alley garage on an older Bench lot is a different kind of work entirely.

A few things tend to move the price and the timeline the most:

Knowing roughly what you've got before you call — count, size, and how buried they are — makes it a lot easier to get an accurate picture of the job up front.

How many tires there are, and whether they're loose, stacked, or buried under something else
Whether they're still mounted on rims or wheels
Tire type — passenger car tires versus truck, tractor, or heavy equipment tires
How easy the pile is to reach: curbside and open driveway versus a detached garage, alley, or crawlspace
Whether the tires are dry or have been sitting outside holding water and debris

Rules That Apply to Tires Here

The Ada County Landfill, out off Seamans Gulch Road in the North Boise foothills, does take tires, but they come with a per-tire fee on top of regular disposal charges, and rims or other hard-to-handle items carry their own separate fees.

The county also requires every load headed to the landfill to be tarped or otherwise secured before it gets there. That's not just a landfill rule — it's a county ordinance, and the sheriff's office patrols for loose debris on the road. An uncovered load that sheds tires on the way is the homeowner's problem to clean up, not just a fine.

Burning isn't a shortcut either. Boise Fire prohibits most open burning inside city limits already, and even the recreational fires that are still allowed are limited to plain firewood in a small pit well away from structures. Tires were never part of that, and burning one puts off thick, toxic smoke that's a bigger problem than the tire itself.

Mistakes That Slow This Down

The most common one is assuming tires will get hauled away on bulky pickup day along with the mattress and the old water heater. They won't — tires aren't on that list, so they just sit at the curb.

The second is loading tires loose in a truck bed for the drive up to the landfill without strapping them down. A tire that bounces out on the way is a hazard for the next driver and a citation waiting to happen.

And in older Bench homes, tires often end up against a detached garage or down in a crawlspace where they sit through a wet winter. By the time spring cleanout rolls around, they've soaked up water and gotten noticeably heavier, which affects both how hard they are to move and what they'll weigh in at the landfill scale.

Whether it's a few tires behind the garage in Vista or a stack left over from a shop cleanout on the Bench, the job gets a lot easier once someone knows what they're dealing with before they show up. Boise Tire Removal offers free estimates if you'd rather have it handled than haul it yourself.

Tire Removal in The Bench