Tearing Down a Shed or Fence in Midland? Plan the Debris First

September 15, 2026

The City will haul a swing set away free, but it names fencing on the list of things it refuses. Here is every route a teardown pile can take, and where each one stops.

The Free Routes Name Your Material by Name

Most backyard projects in Midland end at one of three free or near-free doors: the alley container, the Citizens Collection Station on Smith Road, or the Citizens Convenience Center on West Highway 80. A shed or fence teardown is the rare job turned away at all three.

The City's residential trash service publishes a short prohibited list, and construction debris sits on it alongside tires, vehicle batteries, barrels of oil, and tree limbs. The City states plainly that unauthorized disposal of prohibited items is considered illegal dumping, so stacking fence panels beside the alley container is not a gray area.

The two citizen stations are more specific still. Their published Not Accepted list reads:

• Commercial waste of any type
• Construction material of any type
• Fencing
• Concrete
• Dirt
• Rock
• Tires
• Hazardous waste

What the City Will Still Take From the Same Backyard

Fencing earns its own line on that list, and the concrete footing under each post earns another — one afternoon of fence work produces two categories of material neither station accepts.

The refusals are narrower than they sound, though, so separate the structure from everything around it. For residential customers the City picks up furniture and appliances at no additional charge, and its published examples include swing sets, patio furniture, BBQ grills, water heaters, and A/C units. Clearing a backyard often means the play set leaves free while the fence around it does not.

That pickup has conditions. Items must be placed in the alley in the city right-of-way, the City will not go onto private property, and collections are currently scheduled by date of call at 432-685-7278 — more in the guide to the City's free furniture and appliance pickup. The carry from the back of the yard to the alley is yours.

Brush is the other exception. Tree trimmings and yard trimmings are accepted at the citizen stations, which matters because fence lines collect years of growth. The vegetation you clear to reach the posts can go free even though the posts cannot.

The Landfill Run, and What Multiplies It

Demolition material does have a legitimate destination: the City of Midland Landfill at 7901 E. Garden City Highway. The gate is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the scale house accepts card, cash, and check.

Vehicles without a valid Garbage Hauler's Permit are charged a $25 Landfill Access Fee in addition to regular landfill charges. The permit is $500 per year for each vehicle, which only pencils out for someone hauling for a living, so for a homeowner the access fee lands on every trip.

That per-trip structure is what quietly turns a teardown expensive. A hundred feet of privacy fence does not fit in one pickup bed, each return trip adds the fee again, and every load has to land inside a weekday window that closes at 4 p.m. There is more in what a landfill run actually costs.

A Teardown Makes More Debris Than It Looks Like

People estimate a fence by its face and a shed by its footprint, and both undercount badly. A fence is panels plus rails plus posts, and those posts usually come up with a concrete footing attached to each one. A shed is framing, floor, siding, roof decking, and shingles — and the shingles alone can outweigh most of what is under them.

Then there is the part nobody budgets for: whatever was inside. A shed that has stood a decade is a storage unit with a roof, and emptying it is a property cleanout before demolition even starts — two jobs that show up on the same morning.

If you are sizing a container instead of counting truck beds, the dumpster size guide for the Permian Basin works through the volume math for this kind of mixed, heavy load.

Container, Crew, or Both

The City rents containers for this. Construction containers — 30 cubic yard open-tops — can be provided to City customers on request, billed on the customer's current water bill or set up through Customer Service, with prices and availability at 432-685-7278. Private roll-off dumpster rental covers the same need on a different schedule.

A container solves disposal. It does not solve the teardown. Pulling posts, breaking footings, cutting panels down to a size that actually loads, and denailing framing is demolition labor, and that is the part that turns one Saturday into three.

The split is worth being honest about. With the tools, the help, and the weekends, the free routes plus a landfill run cost you fees and time and nothing else. If the job has a closing date, a tenant moving in, or a county address the City's programs do not reach, a teardown and haul-off crew in Midland collapses demolition and disposal into one visit, and construction debris and demolition work prices by the volume that leaves the yard.

Two Calls Before the First Swing

Call 811 first. It is the free national before-you-dig service, and its guidance is that every digging project, regardless of depth, warrants a call a few business days ahead so utilities can mark buried lines. Pulling fence posts is digging, and 811 notes that shovels rank second behind backhoes as a cause of utility damage.

Then call your neighbor if the fence sits on a shared line — that conversation is cheaper before the panels come down than after. And if you are unsure whether your teardown needs a permit, ask the City's building officials rather than a neighbor's recollection.

More from the blog

• Clearing the Garage Before Listing Photos in Midland
• Getting a Hot Tub, Swing Set, or Trampoline Out of a Midland Backyard
• Free Electronics Recycling in Midland: TVs and Computers