Service area
Where We Deliver — Lakeland, Polk County & Central Florida
Seventeen communities across Polk County, delivered daily from our yard on 1602 Combee Rd, with I-4, US 92, US 98 and SR 570 — the Polk Parkway — all a few minutes away. Five of them are neighborhoods inside the City of Lakeland, seven are municipalities of their own, and five are unincorporated county ground where the County is the whole government. They do not give the same answers, which is why every one below has its own page with local placement notes, the jurisdiction answer, landmarks and driving routes.
By locality
Pick your town or neighborhood
At a glance
Distance and access from our yard
| Town / community | Locality | From our yard | Main route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dixieland | Polk County | Southwest of our Combee Road yard, over on the South Florida Avenue side of town | Combee Rd south to US 92, west on Memorial Blvd, then south on S Florida Ave |
| Lake Morton | Polk County | West and a little south of our Combee Road yard, in the heart of the city | Combee Rd to US 92, west on Memorial Blvd, then south on Lake Ave into the district |
| Lake Hollingsworth | Polk County | Southwest of our Combee Road yard, on the south side of the historic core | Combee Rd to US 92, west on Memorial Blvd, then south on Lake Ave and around to Hollingsworth Rd |
| Cleveland Heights | Polk County | Southwest of our Combee Road yard, south of the historic core off Cleveland Heights Blvd | Combee Rd to US 92, west on Memorial Blvd, then south on Lake Ave and out Cleveland Heights Blvd |
| South Lake Morton | Polk County | West and south of our Combee Road yard, between Lake Morton and Lake Hollingsworth | Combee Rd to US 92, west on Memorial Blvd, south on Lake Ave and into the district |
| Winter Haven | Polk County | East of our Combee Road yard, out along the US 92 and SR 540 corridors | Combee Rd to US 92, then east on Memorial Blvd through Auburndale and into Winter Haven |
| Bartow | Polk County | South of our Combee Road yard, straight down US 98 | Combee Rd south to US 98, then south on Bartow Rd through Highland City |
| Auburndale | Polk County | East of our Combee Road yard, out US 92 toward the middle of the county | Combee Rd to US 92, then east on Memorial Blvd straight into Auburndale |
| Mulberry | Polk County | Southwest of our Combee Road yard, down toward the phosphate country on SR 37 | Combee Rd south to US 98, west through Lakeland, then south on SR 37 |
| Lake Alfred | Polk County | East and a little north of our Combee Road yard, out beyond Auburndale | Combee Rd to US 92, east through Auburndale, then on to Lake Alfred |
| Eagle Lake | Polk County | East and south of our Combee Road yard, down between Bartow and Winter Haven | Combee Rd to US 92 east, then south on SR 540 toward the city |
| Polk City | Polk County | Northeast of our Combee Road yard, up SR 33 toward the I-4 corridor | Combee Rd north to SR 33, then northeast to Polk City |
| Lakeland Highlands | Polk County | South of our Combee Road yard, below the Lakeland city limits off Lakeland Highlands Rd | Combee Rd south to US 98, west into Lakeland, then south on Lakeland Highlands Rd |
| Highland City | Polk County | South of our Combee Road yard, on US 98 between Lakeland and Bartow | Combee Rd south to US 98, then south on Bartow Rd through the community |
| Kathleen | Polk County | Northwest of our Combee Road yard, out SR 539 past the north side of the city | Combee Rd north to US 92, west through town, then north on SR 539, Kathleen Rd |
| Combee Settlement | Polk County | On the Combee Road corridor northeast of downtown Lakeland, close to our yard | Combee Rd north and south through the middle of the community |
| Medulla | Polk County | South of our Combee Road yard, in the unincorporated ground below south Lakeland | Combee Rd south to US 98, west through Lakeland, then south into the Medulla area |
Local knowledge
Seventeen municipalities, a lot of unincorporated ground, and three different answers
Three tiers of government in one service area
The container goes on your own property whenever we can manage it, with plywood down under every wheel and rail. The moment any part of it touches a street, a sidewalk or a verge, you need to know which government you are standing in front of — and in this county that is a real question with three different answers. Polk County publishes that it includes 17 municipalities: 13 Cities, 3 Towns and 1 Village, with a great deal of unincorporated territory besides. First tier: inside the City of Lakeland. Lakeland has been a city since 1 January 1885, runs a Commission-Manager government, and operates its own solid waste division, fire department, police department, electric utility, water utility, airport and engineering permit desk. Its rule is written down and it names our equipment: “Any work within the City of Lakeland right-of-way of any nature, including road or sidewalk closures, will require a Right-of-Way Use Permit through the Public Works Engineering Division, prior to commencement of any work,” and the permit provisions name dumpsters and roll-off containers explicitly. Fees run $0, $250 or $500 by tier, with extensions from $500 to $1,500, as published; Engineering is at 228 S. Massachusetts Avenue, the contact is David Stroud on (863) 834-8437, Sunshine 811 notification is a written condition of the permit, and the City may order a container off on-street parking on 24 hours’ notice at the permittee’s expense. Second tier: the other municipalities we serve — Winter Haven, Bartow, Auburndale, Mulberry, Lake Alfred, Eagle Lake and Polk City. Each has its own charter, its own counter and its own collection program, and we will tell you to check with the city rather than print a rule we have not read there. Third tier: unincorporated Polk — Lakeland Highlands, Highland City, Kathleen, Combee Settlement and Medulla. No city hall, no city permit desk; the County is the building department, the collection utility and, through Polk County Fire Rescue, the fire service. On your own driveway none of the three tiers engages a permit that we are aware of, which is why the driveway is nearly always the right answer. Then work out who owns the pavement. I-4 is an interstate; US 98, US 92, SR 33, SR 37, SR 539, SR 540, SR 563 and SR 570, the Polk Parkway, which is a toll road, are FDOT’s, and Polk sits in FDOT District One, headquartered in Bartow. County Line Road, Combee Road, Lakeland Highlands Road and Socrum Loop Road run across the boundary. Give us the address and we will tell you which of the three answers applies before we load a truck.
What comes out first, and where the rest of it goes
Polk buries its waste rather than burning it, and that decides what belongs in a container. Nearly everything we pick up goes to the North Central Landfill at 7425 De Castro Road, Winter Haven, where disposal is charged by the ton. As published, that is $46 a ton for construction and demolition debris, $46 a ton for municipal solid waste and $36.50 a ton for yard trash, with a $10 minimum, on a schedule set to rise 5 percent a year for five years — so treat any figure on any web page, ours included, as a published rate rather than today’s rate. The unusual part is who may use it. The County restricts the gate to loads brought in “solely by commercial haulers carrying materials from within Polk County,” which makes where your debris came from a legal question rather than a logistical one. And the City runs collection only — it has no landfill or transfer station of its own. Sorting is not housekeeping in a system priced by the ton, it is the bill, and it is our side of the job rather than yours. The statewide rules sit underneath that. Florida’s solid waste regulation is Chapter 62-701, F.A.C., administered by Florida DEP, with construction and demolition debris defined at Rule 62-701.200(24) and C&D disposal and recycling governed by Rule 62-701.730. The disposal ban that actually bites is lead-acid batteries under § 403.708(12), Fla. Stat., and since a lined landfill is exactly where our loads go, that ban is operative here rather than theoretical. Pull batteries before the box leaves. We keep paint, solvents, fuel, automotive fluids and pool chemicals out too; those take the County’s household hazardous waste route rather than the curb, so plan around a date instead of setting it out. Here is the contrast that catches people out. Neither the City nor the County collects construction and demolition debris at the curb. Inside the city there is weekly automated curbside recycling and commercial customers get four free bulk collections a year of up to 20 cubic yards each; in unincorporated Polk, curbside recycling has been discontinued and bulky collection runs monthly with no per-item charge. The quick test is the cart: gray or black with a yellow lid, you are a Polk County customer. Self-hauling is thinner than people expect — there is one convenience center in the county, the Haines City pilot open since 1 June 2026, at $10 for a car, $18 for a small trailer, $27 for a large one and $5 per tire, as published, digital payment only, with a residency check, taking “no automated dump trailers,” and closed to commercial use. One more local rule worth knowing before you rake anything into a pile: burning yard debris is prohibited inside the Lakeland city limits, and burn authorizations moved to the Florida Forest Service on (863) 940-6701 in September 2016.
An old city inside a county growing fast
Two Lakelands sit in one service area. The city has seven historic districts covering about 1.42 square miles, more than 1,600 historic buildings, and periods of significance running from 1884 to 1953 — a genuinely pre-war core, which is not what most people expect of Central Florida. Around it, Polk County grew 20.7 percent between 2020 and 2025, with county officials describing something close to one family an hour moving in, and new subdivisions going up to take them. So a job in one of the lake neighborhoods and a job out on the edge of the county are two different loads with two different paperwork trails, and that is the single most useful thing to know about sizing a container here. The construction is the other half. Everything here is slab-on-grade: no basement, no crawlspace, nothing under the floor. That sounds as though it ought to make a cleanout smaller and it does the exact opposite, because a house with nowhere below the floor puts decades of accumulation somewhere else. The garage, the carport and the lanai are the storage, and they are also the job. A garage cleared to the slab, a screened lanai emptied of furniture and boxes, and a shed taken down is a genuinely common booking here, and it is usually a 20 yard. Two dates decide the paperwork on an older house. 1978: the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting rule covers pre-1978 housing, it is administered by EPA directly in Florida rather than through a state program, and window replacement and demolition are always covered. In a city with this much genuinely old stock, RRP is not an edge case — on a lot of these streets it is the default condition of the job. The other is the asbestos notification, which in Polk goes to the state rather than to a county commission: Florida DEP’s Southwest District office on (813) 470-5700, at least 10 working days ahead, at $200 for a paper notice and $100 filed and paid electronically, as published. Statewide behind both sit Chapter 62-257, F.A.C. and DBPR licensing under § 469.004, Fla. Stat. We do not accept asbestos in our containers, ever.
Ridge, lakes, karst and the weather that actually happens here
The first thing we ask about is the surface, not the slope. Grade almost never decides a placement here. What decides it is what the ground does when it is wet. There is no frost requirement at all, because nothing freezes; the constraint runs the other way. A loaded 20 yard container weighs several tons and puts all of it on four small contact points, so in the summer rainy season a lawn or an unpaved verge is not a load-bearing surface. The driveway is. Plywood goes under every wheel and under both rails on every placement, all year round, and the loading rule is load flat, load low. The setting is the second thing, and it is not the flat coastal Florida people picture. This is Lake Wales Ridge country: Lakeland sits at about 203 feet and the county high point is around 305 feet. The city is named for its water — 38 named lakes, from Lake Blanton at roughly 2.5 acres to Lake Parker at roughly 2,272 acres, covering about 12 percent of the city’s area and interconnected through the stormwater system, which is why the City says “what happens upstream can have significant impacts downstream.” On a lakefront lot, where a loaded box sits is a stormwater question as much as an access question. The rock under the sand is the third. Florida is a flat-lying carbonate platform buried beneath sandy marine deposits, and the karst here shows up as closed topographic depressions rather than caves in a hillside. Polk is the historic heart of Florida phosphate mining — Bone Valley — and the best documented local event is the Mosaic New Wales sinkhole of 28 August 2016, which drained a gypsum stack and had Florida DEP on site within 24 hours. § 627.706, Fla. Stat. separates sinkhole loss from catastrophic ground cover collapse. We will not quote you an incident count, we will not repeat the nickname the news uses for this part of the state because no state agency uses it, and we will say nothing at all about your particular lot. Practically, a heavily loaded container is a concentrated point load, and we would far rather set it on a driveway slab than on soft or made ground. Then the weather, where Polk is genuinely different. This county has no coastline, so storm surge is physically inapplicable here and nobody in Polk is evacuating for it. What arrives is the storm after landfall. Hurricane Irma in 2017 put its eye over western Polk at Category 2 and eight of every ten homes in the county lost power. Hurricane Milton in 2024 dropped 12 inches or more of rain in 24 hours against a 2.28 inch October normal — the National Weather Service forecast office at Ruskin called it a 1-in-1,000-year event — and the county generated 200,000 to 250,000 cubic yards of debris, sorted into construction, vegetation and appliances. Wind, tornado and rain measured in feet: that is what we plan around.
Service Area FAQs
Do you charge extra to deliver outside Lakeland?
No. Every community listed on this page sits inside our standard service area and the flat rate is the same as it is in Lakeland. Delivery, pickup, your rental window and disposal up to the agreed tonnage are all in the number we quote you on the phone.
How far do you actually go?
Across Polk County and a good way past it. From the Combee Road yard, the Lakeland neighborhoods — Dixieland, Lake Morton, Lake Hollingsworth, Cleveland Heights and South Lake Morton — and Combee Settlement are all short runs. South on US 98 we cover Highland City, Medulla, Lakeland Highlands and Bartow; east on US 92 and SR 540, Auburndale, Winter Haven, Lake Alfred and Eagle Lake; southwest on SR 37, Mulberry; and northwest and northeast on SR 539 and SR 33, Kathleen and Polk City. Inside the county, I-4, US 92, US 98, SR 539, SR 540, SR 563, SR 570 — the Polk Parkway — and Combee Road carry most of our day. The flat rate is the same throughout. What crossing a line changes is not the price, it is the rulebook: whether you are in the City of Lakeland, in one of the other 16 municipalities, or on unincorporated county ground, whose permit desk you deal with, and who owns the pavement out front. We go further for multi-container jobs and contractor accounts. If your address is not on the list, call and ask, and if we cannot reach you we will usually know who can.
Can you deliver out to Kathleen, Polk City or Medulla?
Yes, with a conversation first. Out toward Kathleen, Polk City and Medulla the constraint is the approach rather than the street: long sand or shell drives, gates a truck cannot swing wide enough for, low live oak limbs, and ground that carries a loaded box in April and will not in August. Where a house is on its own well and septic, tell us where the tank, the drain field and the well head are so the box does not go over any of them. One thing worth knowing before you plan a street placement out there: those are county roads in unincorporated Polk, so it is a County question and there is no city desk to call, because there is no city out there. Inside the Lakeland city limits the same placement runs through a Right-of-Way Use Permit at Public Works Engineering instead, and in Polk City or any of the other municipalities it runs through that city. Give us the address and we will tell you honestly what will and will not work.
Which parts of Lakeland do you cover?
All of it, and the surrounding county with it. Running from our Combee Road yard, US 92, US 98 and the Polk Parkway put the whole city inside fifteen minutes, with South Florida Avenue covering Dixieland and the lake neighborhoods, Lakeland Highlands Road and Harden Boulevard the south side, and Socrum Loop Road and Kathleen Road the north. Placement is what is worth a sentence on the phone. A historic-district street with a narrow frontage, a short driveway and cars both sides is a different job from a wide apron on a newer lot; a shared driveway in a townhome row decides the size on its own; and if the only flat spot is grass we need to talk about the wet season before we promise you anything. If any part of the box has to go in a city street, sidewalk or verge, that is a Right-of-Way Use Permit through Public Works Engineering and we will say so before we book it. Every box goes down clear of the house, the eaves, the meter and the AC condenser, and every one gets plywood under the wheels and rails. Give us the address and we will have it sorted before the truck leaves.
Talk to a real person
Need a dumpster in Lakeland today?
Tell us what you are clearing out and we will tell you the right size and the flat price to put it in your driveway. No forms, no waiting on an email — just call and we will sort it out in a couple of minutes.
Serving Lakeland, Polk County and Central Florida · Mon–Fri 6:30am–5pm, Sat 7am–1pm