Brick and block disposal is a narrower problem than concrete, but it's nearly as annoying. You tear out an old chimney, demo a CMU foundation wall, or replace a brick facade, and you're left with pallets of hard, heavy material that doesn't fit in a roll-off dumpster without hitting the weight cap. It's too dense for regular trash, too clean for the landfill in most cases, and too specific for the average junk hauler to want to touch.

Here's how masonry rubble gets handled in East Tennessee, and what you can bring to the yard.

What We Accept on the Masonry Line

If it's fired clay or cementitious block, we probably take it. The list covers most of what comes off a residential or light-commercial demo:

Clean red brick and common brick
Fire brick from old fireplaces and chimneys
CMU block, also called cinder block or concrete block
Old mortar in reasonable amounts, still attached to the brick or block
Natural stone masonry from old chimneys, foundations, and fieldstone walls

You don't have to chip the mortar off. You don't have to sort brick from block. It all gets processed through a similar crushing and screening stream, so a mixed masonry load is fine.

What We Don't Take

The exclusions are short but firm:

Brick painted with lead-based coating. If the structure is pre-1978 and the paint hasn't been abated, we can't accept it.
Asbestos-containing mortar. Rare, but possible on very old industrial or institutional buildings. If you know or suspect ACM, it needs a specialty abatement path, not our yard.
Mixed loads with wood, drywall, insulation, or roofing embedded. A little residual is fine. A pickup bed layered with framing scraps is not.

If you're not sure what you have, call before you load up.

Why the Landfill Isn't a Fit for Masonry-Only Loads

Brick is heavy. That's the whole issue. When landfills charge by the ton, dense material like brick and block turns into an oversized bill for what's really a small pile by volume. On top of that, the Blount County landfill is residents-only, so contractors and out-of-county homeowners are shut out before they get on the scale. Knox County convenience centers refuse brick and block outright — they're set up for household waste, not construction debris.

That leaves a very narrow window if you want to do it "the official way," and none of it is convenient.

Why Roll-Off Dumpsters Don't Work Great Either

Roll-off companies know brick is a weight bomb. Most of them cap heavy-material dumpsters at 5 cubic yards, and even at that size a single chimney demo or a CMU foundation wall can blow through the included weight allowance. Overweight fees stack fast. A few of the newer haulers in the region ban brick, rock, and concrete outright — you'll see it in the fine print when you book online.

So the dumpster shows up, you load it half full, and you get a call from the driver telling you he can't tip it as-is. That's a bad afternoon.

How SMSG Handles the Material

Once it's on the yard, the brick and block go through a crushing and screening process. A lot of it ends up blended into recycled concrete aggregate base products, which then get sold back into road base, driveway base, and drainage applications. Some clean red brick gets diverted as reclaimed brick for landscapers who want the aged look for garden walls and pathways.

Occasionally we'll see antique brick worth setting aside — old handmade brick with distinct color and character, salvaged from a 100-year-old structure. If you're bringing a load you think has salvage value, mention it at the gate and we can route the obvious keepers separately.

How the Drop-Off Works at the Gate

Drive up during hours. Staff will direct you to the masonry bay, which is separate from the concrete stream but priced the same way. Dump, sweep out the bed, and you're back on the road. The fee is flat per rig — same rate whether you rolled up in a half-ton pickup or a tri-axle dump truck. No scale ticket, no per-ton math, no follow-up invoice.

That flat structure is the whole reason contractors like using the yard for masonry work. You can quote your customer a firm disposal number before you swing a hammer.

Questions People Ask Before They Show Up

Can I bring brick with mortar still attached? Yes. A reasonable amount of mortar on the brick or between blocks is fine. It all crushes together.

Do you take painted brick? Only if the paint is post-1978 latex or standard exterior paint. Pre-1978 lead-based paint is a no, because it changes what we can do with the crushed product downstream.

What's the difference between CMU and clay brick disposal? For our purposes, none. Both are accepted at the same flat per-vehicle rate and both feed the same processing stream.

Can I bring a mixed load of brick and concrete? Yes. Brick, block, and concrete all go into similar processing here, so a mixed load doesn't need to be sorted before you arrive.

Do you buy salvage brick? Call ahead. We're primarily a recycler, not a salvage broker, but occasional antique loads do get separated out. We're not going to quote a price sight unseen.

Bringing a Load In

If you've got brick, block, or masonry rubble to move and you don't want to wrestle with a dumpster or a landfill scale, the yard is set up for exactly this kind of drop. Smoky Mountain Sand & Gravel is at 245 Brookdale Road in Maryville, open Monday through Friday 7am to 5pm and Saturday 7am to noon. Call (865) 999-0857 if you want to confirm the load is a good fit before you drive over.

Brick, Block & Masonry Disposal in East Tennessee — Where the Rubble Actually Goes