Tear out a deck or a fence and you're left with a pile that looks like ordinary wood — and isn't. Pressure-treated lumber is wood infused with preservative chemicals, and that changes every disposal rule that applies to it. One rule above all: it never, ever goes in a fire.
Why you can never burn it
Burning preservative-treated wood is illegal in all 50 states, and the reason is worth knowing. Decks and fences built before roughly 2004 were typically treated with CCA — chromated copper arsenate — and burning it puts arsenic in the smoke and concentrates it in the ash. The EPA ended CCA's residential use in 2003, but the decks built with it are exactly the ones being torn out now. Newer lumber uses different copper-based preservatives; it still doesn't belong in a fire pit or a brush burn. If a board came from a deck, a fence, or landscape timbers, treat it as treated.
Where it can't go: compost and mulch programs
Green-waste programs — the yard-waste drop-offs and compost operations our yard waste guide covers — take brush and clean untreated wood, not preservative-treated lumber. A load with treated boards mixed in can get the whole thing rejected. Keep the fence posts out of the brush pile.
Where it goes: C&D and municipal landfills
Treated wood is legal and routine in construction-and-demolition landfills. On the Missouri side, Pink Hill Acres in Blue Springs takes C&D loads from the public; Johnson County has C&D landfills on the Kansas side; and regular municipal landfill transfer stations accept it with the general waste stream. Pricing runs per load or per ton — a full fence tear-out is heavier than it looks, since old posts often come up with a concrete boot attached (our concrete guide covers that half of the pile).
The reuse carve-out: clean, straight, usable boards
Structurally sound lumber has a second life. Habitat ReStore accepts reusable building materials — call ahead, and be honest with yourself about condition: straight and solid, yes; gray, split, and rotted at the post line, no. Craigslist and Marketplace "free lumber" listings also move fast with weekend builders. Reuse only works for boards someone would actually build with.
Where we fit
Fence and deck debris is core work for us — we haul the torn-out pile by the truckload, nails and all, or handle the tear-out itself quoted by length. Treated wood rides to the proper disposal stream, never to a burn pile or a compost program. Text a photo of the pile and you'll have a firm price in about 15 minutes.