Concrete Driveway Tear-Out in KC: What Fits in a 10 Yard

A cubic yard of broken concrete weighs roughly 4,000 pounds. That single fact controls everything about how concrete loads get priced, sized, and hauled. If you're tearing out a driveway, a patio, or a sidewalk in Kansas City, this is the math you need.

The weight math.

Concrete by itself: ~4,000 lbs per cubic yard. Concrete with rebar: slightly heavier (rebar is steel, denser than concrete). Concrete with embedded dirt or gravel: heavier still — sometimes 4,500+ lbs/yard.

The 10 yard's 2-ton tonnage cap means it holds 1 cubic yard of broken concrete before hitting overage charges. We adjust the math for concrete jobs specifically: we charge a flat-rate "heavy material" pricing structure that allows up to 5 tons in a 10 yard. Any more than that, you need a swap.

Driveway-sized loads.

For most KC residential driveway tear-outs:

• Two-car driveway (400–500 sq ft, 4 in thick): ~6 tons of concrete. Comfortably fits in one 10 yard dumpster with heavy-material pricing.
• Long driveway (600–800 sq ft, 4 in thick): ~10–13 tons. Two 10-yard loads, or one 10 plus swap.
• Driveway expansion + new walkway: usually one 10 yard if it's under 800 sq ft of demo.
• Foundation work / large patio: depends on cubic footage. Often goes into a separate quote.

Why a 10 yard and not a 20.

You could physically fit more concrete in a 20 yard by volume. But the truck can't legally haul it. Missouri DOT axle weight limits, plus our trucks' rated capacity, top out at around 13 tons gross — and that includes the dumpster itself. A 20 yard full of concrete exceeds those limits.

So we drop the 10 yard for concrete jobs, accept the lower volume, and use the dumpster's engineered floor strength to its full advantage.

"The 10 yard is the only size physically rated for concrete. Larger sizes filled with concrete are illegal hauls."

Mixed loads: concrete + dirt.

Common scenario: tearing out a driveway includes digging up the gravel base under it. The base material (gravel, dirt) is also heavy. If it's clean (no roots, no debris), it can go in the same dumpster as the concrete. If it's mixed with roots or other organic material, we recommend separating it because pure dirt is sometimes recyclable as fill while mixed material has to go to landfill.

Mixed loads: concrete + rebar.

Older KC driveways (1980s+) usually have rebar reinforcement. Rebar in concrete loads is fine — disposal facilities can separate the steel and recycle it. We don't adjust pricing for rebar content; just expect the load to weigh slightly more per yard.

Concrete recycling in Kansas City.

Clean concrete (no rebar, no contamination) can be recycled in KC. Several local crushers accept clean concrete for re-processing into recycled aggregate. Disposal fees for recycled concrete are typically lower than landfill tipping — so if your job generates a clean-only load, mention it. We can route to a recycler instead of landfill where the load qualifies.

This is part of why the "Low Impact" name fits — when we can divert, we divert.

Driveway tear-out: protecting what's left.

Common case: tearing out half a driveway (expansion or repair). The unbroken portion stays. We position the dumpster on the unbroken concrete with extra boards underneath — a loaded concrete dumpster is heavy enough that it deserves extra surface area on top of our standard 2x12 protection. More on how we protect concrete.

What can't go in.

Concrete dumpsters are concrete (and concrete-adjacent material) only. Don't mix in household debris, drywall, paint cans, or really anything else. Why? Two reasons: (1) the load gets disposed at a different facility than mixed C&D, and (2) anything non-concrete contaminates the load for recycling. See our full restricted list.

The phone test.

Tell us the dimensions of the concrete being torn out (length × width × thickness) and whether there's rebar. We'll quote a flat-rate heavy-material price and a delivery window. Concrete dumpster page or call (816) 427-6571.