Also known as Oak311. This app (Apple, Android) let's you submit work requests to Oakland Public Works. The City crews do amazing work responding to requests for illegal dumping, including mattresses. Surrounding cities (e.g., Berkeley, Emeryville) are also on the app.

The City's Adopt a Spot program supports our cleanups with tools and bags. Want to organize a cleanup in your neighborhood? You can with the Adopt a Spot program!

What should you do with your old mattress? Don't dump it on our streets! You will be cursed with bad sleep (for the rest of your life) if you do! 

If it still has some useful years left (be honest), put it up for free on Craigslist, your local Buy Nothing group, or other favorite community communication channel. If it's time to retire it, you have three options (all free): 

(1) Schedule an appointment to drop it off FOR FREE at the Waste Management site near the Oakland Airport (2615 Davis Street, San Leandro, CA, 94577; Monday-Friday 7am-5pm; Saturday: 8am-4pm).

(2) Drop it off FOR FREE without an appointment on the last Saturday of the month (check the schedule in case it is a holiday weekend) near the Colesium (7101 Edgewater Drive, Oakland, CA 94621; 9am-1pm). Bring proof that you live in Oakland, such as a bill.

(3) Schedule a curbside pickup FOR FREE on your regular trash day (so easy!)

Oakland is home to awesome volunteer groups working to keep the City clean.

• Trash Falcons meets at 9am on Sundays to clean up Lake Merritt.

• Friends of Mandela Parkway meets on the 2nd Saturday of the month at 10am, with one group starting at 9th and Mandela and another at 32nd and Mandela. Questions? Call (510) 697-1797

• Friends of Raimondi Park promotes the enjoyment of Raimondi Park’s green spaces, athletic fields, playground, and putting green.

• Urban Compassion Project not only does huge cleanups, but works with our unhoused neighbors to provide mutual aid and wrap around services.

• Across the Bay, Refuse Refuse SF leads great cleanups.

All supplies are provided at our cleanups, courtesy of Oakland's Adopt a Spot program. If your city doesn't have a similar program and you'd like to organize a cleanup of your own, our friends at Refuse Refuse SF have compiled a great list of gear options for picking up trash.

The EZ Reacher by ArcMate is by far our preferred grabber. It is durable, light, has great dexterity, and the grabber cups can be replaced if needed. Refuse Refuse's idea to use agility training rings + binder clips is a great way to keep a bag open while picking up trash. We use rubberized gardening gloves in our cleanups.

• West Oakland Neighbors is a group of neighbors that have been meeting monthly for over 20 years.

• West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project is a resident led environmental justice organization dedicated to achieving healthy homes, healthy jobs, and healthy neighborhoods in West Oakland.

• West Oakland Cultural Action Network works to preserve and uplift the cultural, political, economic, and social conditions of the Hoover, Clawson, and McClymonds neighborhoods.