Off the property is the default, and it is worth asking about out loud
There are only two places a torn out slab can end up. It leaves, or it stays somewhere on your land. On our work it leaves, and the loading, the trucking and the dump fees are inside the removal line on your estimate instead of being somebody's problem later.
That is worth confirming with any crew you talk to, because a page that says removal and a page that says haul off are not always the same page. Push it into the bank behind the shop and the job is cheaper and you own a pile of broken concrete forever. Get the answer in writing along with everything else.
A driveway's worth is more material than it looks like
Lying flat, a slab reads as a surface. Broken up and loaded, it reads as what it always was, which is rock. The volume surprises people every time, and the weight is why every step of removal is machine work and truck work rather than something a pickup and a weekend handles.
That is also why removal carries its own line on an estimate instead of being folded into the price of the pour. Breaking, cutting the steel out, loading and hauling are work a fresh pour never has to do. Where the old slab butts against something that stays, a garage floor, a stoop, an apron at the road, a saw cut goes in first so the demolition ends on a clean line instead of a ragged one. Removal as a service, and the ground work that follows it, is covered on our tear out and replacement page.
It is rock, so it goes where rock goes
Cured concrete is inert. It is sand, stone and cement that already did its chemistry, so it is not hazardous and it is not a household waste problem. It is a bulk material problem. That is why it does not go out with the trash, does not belong in a yard waste pile, and is not something a curbside pickup is set up to take.
Sites that accept clean broken concrete exist for exactly this reason, and clean concrete has a second life. Crushed down, it becomes an aggregate that gets used as fill and as base material under new work, which is a good deal better than being buried. What happens to any particular load depends on the site that takes it, and we are not going to invent a story about your driveway that we cannot stand behind. If it matters to you where the material ends up, ask when we come out to measure and we will tell you what we actually know.
The steel comes out with it, and so does anything you want to keep
Old slabs usually have wire mesh or rebar in them. It has to be cut and pulled loose as the pieces come up, and it leaves with the load. That part is slower than people expect and it is a real reason removal takes the time it does.
If you have an actual use for a few clean pieces, a bank that needs armoring or a low spot you want filled, say so at the estimate rather than on removal day. Setting pieces aside as they come out is easy. Going back for them after the truck is loaded is not. Be honest with yourself first, though. Broken slab is heavy, irregular and awkward to move by hand, and a pile of it does not get more useful after a year of sitting in the weeds.