How does garbage collection work in your area?

[Art 1]

Regular garbage every Tuesday and Friday.

Yard waste, Wednesday.

Recycling is Friday.

 

[packofjedis]

Just curious as how other places deal with this. I live in Ontario Canada and currently (in my municipality) we have once a week pick up for organic waste (mostly food) and recycling (one bin for paper, another for glass and plastics). We have bi-weekly pick up for yard waste (in the summer months only) and regular garbage. You are limited to one garbage bag every two weeks, however for $5 you can buy a "tag" to stick to another bag if you need to.

As a family of 5 we have never needed to put out more than one bag every two weeks. It really is surprising how much can be recycled and thrown in the organic waste bin. We don't have any kids in diapers though. For people who do they may need to but additional "tags" or cloth diaper. I couldn't imagine having dirty diapers sitting around for up to two weeks, that alone might encourage me to cloth diaper. All I know is that when you only get to put out one bag every two weeks you make sure you NEVER miss that garbage truck, especially in the summer!

I just have to say I applaud your area for handling it this way. You are creating a lot less landfill garbage than my area. I feel like other countries are doing it better than my area. (We just got back from a trip to UK and they recycled much more than we do here, and their trash was minimal like yours.)

For my area (NE of Indianapolis), we have our choice of garbage companies, so we pay out of pocket. Recycling is an extra charge, so I would say 95% of my huge neighborhood doesn't do it. Personally, I drive our recycleables 15 minutes up the road once a month or so instead of paying the extra fee.

We have trash pick up once per week. For my family it's about 2 trash bags' worth. For most households around here it's two 96 gallon trashcans, usually overflowing. (And yes, these households have 2 adults, 2 kids).

Yard waste is not an option at the recycle location or through the trash companies. You just put it out with your trash.

The neighboring town, however, does have yard waste pick up and offers recycling. My town tried to get a city-wide trash company with recycling and it was voted down.

Again, I look at how much waste and junk goes to the landfills around here and wish I lived somewhere like you.......it really peeves me to see what people put out in the trash. Oftentimes there are things that should have gone to Goodwill or some other donation place, but people would rather throw it out.

 

[asta]

We have private trash collection and they come twice a week. It is very cheap. No recycling and no restriction on how much. My favorite thing is that they come to the back door to pick up and return the cans. We can drive recyclables to a county collection place if we want to but it is entirely voluntary. Our trash guys will take anything in their old, decrepit truck.

Easy, cheap trash pickup is a benefit of living in the rural south. Cities near us do have some restrictions but not as much as yours.

 

[lauradis]

Private company 55.00 for 3 months for unlimited trash except large items
96 gallon rolling totes green for garbage blue for recycle which we rent
Both go out once week same day pick up

the township road dept does

yard waste 2 times year
2 special pick ups 2 times year and you can pile up anything you want except engines and tires (its like a party of junk)

 

[POOHsie]

When I lived in Plantation, FL (Ft Lauderdale) there was no bill or tax charge for garbage pick-up. You just bought special large blue city bags for garbage, and smaller, clear city bags for recycling. Paper was bundled separately with twine. The blue garbage bags were expensive, so you thought carefully about what you were putting in there. The clear recycling bags were cheap, so the more recyclable stuff you put in there instead of the blue bags was a win-win. Mixed recyclables could go in the clear bags, except paper.

Being in South Florida, trash was picked up twice a week. Recycling once a week. You could bag yard waste in common-brand black trash bags, but they didn't pick up black bags if cheaters put garbage in the black bags. The trucks would also pick up misc. stuff if you bundled it and it wasn't over 40 lbs or 4ft in length. You had an allotment of free bulk pick-ups during the year.

 

[Adipoo]

Very small township, private collection once a week. It costs around $40 a month. No recycling, no yard waste pick up. We can put out 3 large trash cans per week. They used to do extra (for a fee) pick up of large items, but not longer. We just call someone to haul stuff if need be, and we have 5 acres of land, so plenty of space to get rid of minor yard waste on our own.

 

[Praying Colonel]

In our subdivision we have to pay for our own pickup. There are 3 companies that service our area.

We pay $13/month for pickup every Thursday for recyclables and Friday for other garbage. We have a large rolling can for the recyclables and 2 large cans for the other garbage--they're provided by the company at no extra charge. They'll take large stuff that doesn't fit in the bins, but if it's stuff like cardboard boxes we're expected to break them down and tie them together.

Yard waste is extra. We pay a flat fee of $49 for pickup from late March through late November. Again, we're expected to tie items (like tree branches) together that we can't fit into a yard bag.

 

[nighttowll]

I never knew garbage collection was so complex. Always lived in suburbs around the south, and it has always been about the same everywhere. Trash handled by the city/county 2 pickups a week. Just stick whatever cans / bags you have on the curb, and they will take them. We've had as many as 10 bags out there before when we did major spring cleaning. You have to call if you want them to pick up oversized trash like mattresses, tree limbs, or furniture, but other than that anything goes. In Texas, we had a recycling bin, but where we live now that is a foreign concept. Everything is trash, so most people have 2 or 3 bags or cans outside each pick up. I can't imagine limiting trash to 1 bag a week. By the time we throw away all the packaging off food stuff, we've almost filled one bag in a day. I guess if we could recycle plastic and paper than we wouldn't need that much though.