How does your city handle trash pickup?

[mjkacmom]

Sometimes very high property taxes have some perks - they'll pick up any amount of garbage, twice a week, no charge, recyling once a week, and you have to call for things like computers, appliances, tvs, etc, and they pick those up for free, too.

 

[cteddiesgirl]

Wow. I never knew trash was handled any other way. Both cities I have lived in picked up once a week with once a month for heavy trash (such as furniture, appliances, etc). We buy our own bags to put into the plastic can with wheels. then once a week we wheel it out to the street. There's no weight limit as the truck picks up the can instead of men.

I'm not sure how much is paid, but it is paid for with our taxes.

 

[DisTwix]

We have compost bins with lockable lids that go every week too. Makes for a lot less garbage.

.

Oh MAN! Composting - that would be so excellent... I am starting my own compost pile this year - will see how that goes!


OP - any chance you live in the Binghamton, NY area? Sounds just like when I lived there. The trick then was that the crappy bags we bought from the city would never hold more than 20 lbs without busting open completely, so it was a built-in weight limit.

Here in Columbus --- trash is picked up once a week, recycling is either on your own dime or you can take to recycling dumpsters (lucky to have some nearby) and they JUST dropped the yard waste program this year. Now we have to pay extra, or do private hauling.


I can't believe the city here doesn't recycle --- in NY, we started recycling sometime in the 80's - I think '87 or '88.... My office JUST started recycling this past year. It's amazing to me that people just throw away cans and such.

 

[joviroxx]

I have never heard of this pay for your special bags thing. Wow!

We get a huge trash can with wheels from the trash people and two recycling bins. one for cans and one for everythng else.

Our trash can can be as heavy as we want it to be because the garbage truck picks the can up not the garbage men.

.

Our works basically the same way. They pick up twice a week , recycle once a week and we have a bulk garbage pickup once a month. Bulk being anything large such as furniture, appliances, etc....We do pay, its included with our water and sewer, just don't know how much it is since its a total and I havent paid attention lol.

 

[EthansMom]

Each home hires a trash hauling co. to pick up their garbage (3 choices of companies here in our small town). It costs about $35/mo. Our company gave us two monstrously large rolling garbage containers... one for garbage and one for recycleables (plastics 1-7, paper, cardboard, glass, etc..). Garbage pick-up is once per week and recycling is only every other week. They use the robotic-arm garbage trucks to "pick up" the garbage bins.

We also compost at our house.

 

[RN4Babies]

We have two carts that are provided by the city. One is for garbage; anything going into that cart has to be bagged in trash bags. The other one is for recycling. All recycleables (paper, cardboard, glass, aluminum, etc) goes loose into that cart, and they sort it at the city garbage center. We also have curbside yard waste pick up; branches need to be bundled and tied together; smaller amounts of yard waste go into a container you buy yourself and label "yard waste". Regular garbage is picked up weekly; yard waste and recycling rotates on an every other week schedule. In the fall, we rake our leaves into the street, close to the curb, and they're picked up by the city. The regular garbage and yard waste is picked up by garbage men; the recycling carts get picked up and emptied by the robotic arm trucks. You can put out bulk items anytime; an extra fee (I think it's about $20 per item) is tacked on to your property tax bill at the end of the year.

We used to have to buy special blue bags for recycling; paper went in one, and everything else went in a separate bag. They started the recycling carts a couple of years ago, and have found that the amount of materials being recycled has gone up 40%!

We really have great services, but we also have the property takxes that come with it. My taxes last year for my very modest 1200 square foot home and city lot were $3,800.

 

[puffkin]

Our township contracts out the trash pick up. We pay $125 every 6 months. Pick up is once a week, along with recycling. I think you can put out one bulk item a week for pick up as well. There are limits on the number of bags, but they are pretty generous and not really enforced unless it is a habitual problem. It is kind of nice to not really worry about it and everyone pays the same.

My parents township does not contract trash so they have to hire their own hauler. All sorts of options there (some good adn some bad). But living in a development like we do it is nice that everyone is on the same schedule!

 

[daughtersrus]

We have garbage pickup once a week. We have to take the garbage out of the can and place the bags at the curb. It is against their contract to empty a can so if one is there, they will put a sticker on it and leave it full.

We are allowed to put out 1 cubic yard of garbage each week, as many paper lawn bags as we want as well as cut branches. If the branches are not bagged, they have to be cut into lengths no longer than 3 feet and tied. We're also allowed 1 large item (couch, stove...) each week but we have to call first so that they can be sure that there are 2 guys on the truck. We also have recycle bins that can have mixed glass, plastic, paper...

We're one of the rare Chicago suburbs that does not pay for garbage directly by a purchasing stickers or a monthly bill. The cost is included in the village portion of our property tax bill.

 

[liamsaunt]

Our town provides two rolling bins--one 55 gallon bin for trash, which is picked up once a week, and one 95 gallon bin for recycling, which is picked up every other week. There is a truck with a mechanical arm that picks up these bins.

Appliance pickup is every Friday, but you have to purchase a $20 sticker from town hall for it and call to register the pickup. Yard waste goes in the usual brown paper lawn bags, and is picked up on Fridays.

I would actually prefer a smaller trash bin and a larger, or even a second, recycling bin.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

All these rules seem like a royal hassle. Everyone here pays trash fees as part of their property taxes. I noticed last year on our annual bill that it was broken out separately, and was $250. I'm not sure if it varies for apartments, single family homes, etc. I'm not sure if the average person ends up paying more or less than $250 a year when they pay per bag, but I honestly would rather pay more than deal with the crap some of you guys deal with! Trash pick up is two times a week, and recycling is once. They adjusted everyone's schedules recently to eliminate all Saturday pickups because people didn't like the trucks driving around while their kids were outside playing on Saturday mornings.

We have yellow recycling bins, but there is no penalty for not recycling. I do cringe when I find out people don't recycle though- we fill up 3 full size bins per week!!!


We also have "the dump" for larger items, and it's free to go there. I'm not sure what the policy is on large items for pick up- I think you have to call ahead, and it's just easier and quicker for us to get rid of it ourselves since the dump is closed. It is also county run.

 

[bookgirl]

We have two big rolling cans that the automated trucks come by and pick up. If you have more or leaves or whatever you can buy special blue bags and leave them out with your bins and they will pick those up as well. They will not pick up any other bags. We get a small recycle bin and a seperate truck picks it up. We just went ahead and for a small fee got a third rolling can. Not that we have tons of trash but we have lots of trees and garden trash. We don't always use all three but it is nice to have lighter bins to move if you can divide it out.

 

[Kath2003]

Recyclables, general waste and composting must be separated into three separate bins. Recyclables and composting are collected one week; general the next. Extra recyclables can be dropped off at recycling centres - there are 3 within a mile of here, usually at the supermarket. They provide containers for recycling and composting; you must supply your own bags for general. Most people buy a can for general too, but you have to remove the waste bag from that otherwise they will not collect.

 

[NAB]

Oh MAN! Composting - that would be so excellent... I am starting my own compost pile this year - will see how that goes!:

You would be surprised how much kleenex you throw out. Dryer lint, kids leftovers etc. It is great. Our town gave us a bin to put under the sink and a bigger one that goes out to the curb.

I can't imagine why people would need garbage picked up twice a week.

 

[onelilspark]

I can't imagine why people would need garbage picked up twice a week.

I'd love to have a second day. Just as an option since I travel for work and I'm sometimes not around on our trash day.

I just take mine to the curb. I only go through a bag/wk...sometimes 2 if I'm cleaning We have to buy our own bins, etc. But our trash guys like to throw them around and mine winds up being wayyyyy down the hill sometimes, drives me nuts. So unless I have something smelly, need to put it out the night before, etc. I just put out the bag now!

ETA: I live in a Townhouse community. My HOA goes towards trash pick up.

 

[pooh4evr]

I can't remember the exact charge for pick up but I do believe we pay $12 a yr for the big rolling bin fro garbage, and somethign else for the recycling one which they just gave us at the beginning of the yr which is also when they went to 1 pick up a week of trash- So now Wed- is yard waste in the brown bags, and Fri is Recycle, and trash and bulk trash has to be outside by 6am- it stinks literally when you miss it!

 

[LisaNJ25]

We can either put out 2 bags or 2 cans(max 2 bags per cans)
Pick up is 2 times a week. We usually have more than allowed and hubby can thorw them out at work.

We have to buy stickers for things like couches, appliances, mattresses, etc.

Recycling is every 2 weeks.

 

[Zandy595]

Trash/Recycling/Yard Waste is all paid for in our property taxes. We have a big plastic garbage can on wheels that we bought at Walmart. The county provides 2 bins for recycling, 1 for paper and 1 for plastic and aluminum. Garbage gets picked up twice a week. Recycling and yard waste gets picked up once a week. I guess I'm lucky compared to some of you guys.

 

[scrapquilter]

In my town, the town has nothing to do with trash pickup...every resident has the choice of taking their trash to the transfer station ($1.85 per black garbage bag.... $5. annual permit for senior citizens) or contracting with a private trash removal company...there are about 5 or 6 of them and they all charge almost identical prices, usually about $24 for 3 months. Some of them provide the big green barrel that gets picked up by the automatic arm on the truck, others have you use regular trash barrels and the guy on the back of the truck picks them up and empties them

As for recycling: the town has a recycling center where you can drop your recyclables. The private haulers all provide a blue recycling bin and pick it up, some every week and some every other week. One of the haulers does recycling with a big blue barrel that the automated arm on the truck picks up and dumps into the truck.

The main drawback of the private hauler thing is that on my street, there are 9 houses, and at one point, we didnt' all have the same company, so three different trash companies came to pick up on our street: as a result, trash trucks came by on Tuesday, Wed and Thursday mornings. Now people have switched, companies have merged and everyone has Wed mornign except one family which has Thursday...so we get a bit more noise than otherwise.

 

[C.Ann]

Small rural town up here.. We have to separate the recyclables (I just send them home with my son-in-law every Sunday because I don't have the "approved" blue container) and the regular trash is picked up every Monday..

The only thing they require is that you have it in trash bags (any kind) and place it in a container with a lid so the animals can't get into.. (I use a bungee cord on my garbage can..)

 

[Cool-Beans]

We aren't a city, so we have to hire people to come get the garbage. They give us one giant can. For an extra $15/month, you get a second can.

Once a week they come and pick up the trash.

Different people hire different companies, so there are different trucks coming down the street on different days.

But I've yet to hear of anyone who had to weigh the trash, lol. That would suck.