Sammamish's Fall Clear-Out Is Won the Week Before Each Saturday
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
Somewhere in most Sammamish garages there's a shelf of half-used deck stain, a dented propane tank and a few banker's boxes of old tax papers. In late October the City of Sammamish puts two drop-off Saturdays back to back at the same school on 228th Avenue SE, then follows them with a tree pickup and a volunteer day in November. On paper it reads like a simple calendar. In practice, each event depends on something you have to do before you leave the house: reserve a time slot, check a label, get exact change, make a phone call, or join a waitlist.
Here is the order it runs in, with the step that has to come first for each one.
The first stop is a free drive-thru paint recycling event on Saturday, October 24, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Eastside Catholic School, 232 228th Ave. SE. The City of Sammamish runs it with the City of Issaquah and GreenSheen Paint, and the leftover product gets recycled into new paint. It's free for households and businesses alike.
The part that catches people is that you can't just show up. The city asks you to pick an arrival window ahead of time through the GreenSheen reservation page, so book your slot before Saturday morning. Once you arrive, you stay in the car and staff unload your trunk or truck bed.
What goes into that trunk matters as much as the time slot. Containers have to be 5 gallons or smaller with the original labels still on, and the accepted and rejected lists split a typical garage shelf right down the middle.
| Bring it | Leave it home |
|---|---|
| Latex and oil-based paint | Aerosol spray paint |
| Primers and stains | Thinners and solvents |
| Lacquers, varnishes, sealers | Industrial coatings and epoxies |
| Deck paints | Unlabeled or leaking containers |
The last row in the right-hand column is the one most likely to trip you up. A can of fence stain whose label has worn off after a few wet winters won't be accepted, however full it is.
In between the two Saturdays, the city holds Pumpkins on the Plaza on Thursday, October 29, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Sammamish Commons, Upper Commons. It's free. The city's event page lists a scavenger hunt with a prize, a petting-zoo station, and trick-or-treating at city booths and city trunks, with every other spot allergy friendly. There's also a King County Library craft inside City Hall, and dinner from The Cheese Pit and other vendors.
It fits into this sequence because it pulls the neighborhood's Halloween activity two days ahead of the actual holiday. That leaves the morning of October 31 open for the next errand.
On Saturday, October 31, Eastside Catholic School hosts a second collection, this one for hard-to-recycle items and document shredding, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The city's listing has two rules to plan around. No vehicles get in after 3 p.m., and any item with a fee is paid at the entrance in cash only, with exact change.
The city also hasn't posted what it will accept yet. As of this writing, the page says:
An accepted materials list will be published closer to the event date.
That makes it hard to know how much cash to bring. The best reference point is the city's September 27, 2026 collection, the most recent one with fees posted. Treat these as last month's numbers, not a promise for Halloween morning:
| Item at the Sept. 27 event | Fee |
|---|---|
| Mattress or box spring, any size | $35 each |
| Refrigerator, freezer, or household air conditioner | $35 each |
| Porcelain toilet or sink | $25 each |
| Residential propane tank, 5-gallon | $10 each |
| Residential propane tank, 1-gallon | $2 each |
| Water heater with insulation coating | $5 each |
The September list had conditions attached. Toilets and sinks needed seats, hardware and wax rings removed. Refrigerators and freezers couldn't be sealed or have food inside. Shredding was capped at four file-size boxes or five bags per vehicle, and cardboard wasn't accepted at all. If the Halloween event uses similar terms, the shredding cap is what decides how much of a home office you can clear out in one trip.
The program is run by a contractor, not city staff. A January 2026 Sammamish City Council contract amendment names Olympic Environmental Resources as the vendor managing the collection events for 2026.
A practical way to handle the week:
The next Saturday has the earliest deadline of the season, and it has already passed. The joint Sammamish and Issaquah 2026 Tree Giveaway, run with the partner group 300 Trees, hit its goal of 650 trees before pickup day. New requests now go to a waitlist form, and any trees left unclaimed go to people on that list.
Pickup is Saturday, November 7, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Historic Pickering Barn, 1730 10th Ave NW. That's in Issaquah, so plan the drive off the plateau. The program's own guidelines spell out the steps that need to happen first. You call 811 to have utility lines located before applying, and the tree has to be planted inside Sammamish city limits. Renters bring a printed permission form signed by their landlord, and the city points HOA residents to their association's tree-planting rules, since some HOAs require approval first. Households can take up to two trees, plus a free bag of arborist chips for each one.
If you're on the waitlist, those steps are still worth doing now. A tree that becomes available at the last minute goes to someone who can say yes right away.
Back in Sammamish that same morning, the city holds Coffee with Council from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on the mezzanine level of Metropolitan Market.
The season ends outdoors. Evans Meadow Restoration runs Saturday, November 14, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Evans Creek Preserve, and registration is required. Like everything else on this list, it only works if you sign up first.
Paint is the one item you don't have to fit to the city's calendar. Washington's PaintCare program runs year-round drop-off sites that take house paint, primers, stains, sealers and clear coatings like shellac and varnish, at no charge. King County also describes the program as free to Washington residents, businesses and government agencies. The PaintCare site locator says most sites take up to five gallons per visit and asks you to call ahead. Aerosols, leaking cans, unlabeled cans and empty containers are excluded there too. The label rule from October 24 applies either way.
Errand Saturdays usually end with food. Eight Turn Crepe opened its first Washington location on May 2, 2026, at 470 228th Ave NE, as reported by the Sammamish Independent. On the south end of the plateau, the Independent also profiled Diyar, a Persian restaurant in the Klahanie Shopping Center at 4592 Klahanie Drive SE.
A fall clear-out can also be the first step toward getting a home ready to sell, and what you see once the garage is empty can change the plan. If you'd like to know where your Sammamish home stands this season, Tom Covello offers a free home valuation and consultation, and I'm glad to walk through what's worth doing before spring.
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