I’m a single person who recycles paper and plastic, and I only have a full enough trash can to put on the curb about once a month. Maybe every 3 weeks. (I can put it out once a week if I want but it’s not worth it to me for one little bag of trash)
My pickup is cheaper though. I think $38/quarter. So ~$12 a month. But still I pay it because I don’t want to be haulin’ my own trash.
I stayed with a friend a few times who had to haul her own and it wasn’t too bad because she had a little truck she drove around, and everything was out of her way anyway so the dump wasn’t any more out of the way. I would NOT want to put my trash in the back of my SUV let alone a sedan! Yech!
And for the times when you just have a spontaneous mound of trash from your wet basement, or from when you finally cleared the previous owner’s junkpile from the yard, or your dog killed a groundhog and the city won’t come get it…Trash Day is Relief Day.
I was actually on the phone when the guy had the FBI show up and haul him off to the slammer for price fixing. [I used to do contract compliance and forensic accounting for a waste stream management company]
And why yes, one can occasionally find bodies in compactors and dumpsters …
I should probably do an AMA on waste stream management sometime.
How much trash do you generate over a whole season? I can’t imagine even one person’s trash from the last several months not being a whole lot to have sitting around, even if it’s very little relative to other households.
Question from a foreigner - is trash collection a;ways a private service you have to pay for, or are their jurisdictions where the local authority collect?
In the UK, collection is done weekly by the local council (or private subcontractors of the same). This is funded by our local taxes. The majority of local authorities are also pretty strict about recycling and give you a variety of colour coded bins for different stuff (paper and plastic/glass/food waste, garden waste etc). We have a local recycling centre we can take extra stuff to, but, again, this is run by the local authority and is free at the point of delivery.
Its possible you might be a person who is big into recycling and composting and therefore creates very little trash. So you might only produce say 1-2 bags of trash per year. Heck for that I’d bet you could simply take it to work and toss it into the trash bin there.
I once was on the board of our homeowners association and we were in charge of making sure who pays their trash fees. Those that dont pay, they dont get trash picked up nor do they get any of the HOA benefits.
We had I believe about 6 of 256 homes who voluntarily chose this.
Thing is we as a family of 4 create alot of trash and our $16 a month fee is a bargain whereas a single person who recycles nearly everything might produce 1-2 bags for an entire year. Yea, I can see those people not needing a full trash service.
If you go twice a month in warm weather, you save nothing in those 6 months, it’s still $20, all your savings are in cooler months. You’re going to save based on how often you go to the dump during those months.
6 trips - $60/yr or $5/mo
3 trips - $90/yr or $7.50/mo
2 trips - $100/yr or $8.33/mo
1 trip - $110/yr or $9.17/mo
You also need to consider, how much old garbage can you stuff into your Corrola?
I make this decision every three months when my quarterly bill arrives and I don’t have the $48 for it.
I drive by dumpsters every morning when I deliver papers, so I could easily take my trash with me, I guess. But I cook a lot and end up with a lot of bones/fat/smelly things in addition to cat litter and that type of thing; it doesn’t take much to stink up a small SUV. Plus I’d forget and end up with a truckload and that’d make me grouchy. So…I grumble and pay my $48.
I do take my recycling away, though. We don’t have curbside recycling here, so one of my customers lets me leave my stuff at her place on her city route.
I like Urbanredneck’s idea…see if your neighbor will let you share his/her trash bin for a small contribution.
I live in a city. Garbage pickup (plus Recycling) is “free.” That is, the City pays for it out of taxes. (And gets some State money, as well.) It’s considered a public health matter–rats, etc.
I’m pretty sure that’s the case in most metropolitan areas.
I live just outside Bridget’s city. Like many ‘satellite’ communties we operate on a MUD system, a Municipal Utility District. We pay an annual MUD tax that covers sewer, trash, etc but it’s not optional.
We moved here just over 10 years ago. Trash collection cost something like $35-40 per month for one pickup a week, no recycling. There are just 2 of us in the household, and we can’t even fill a can in a week.
On the other hand, there’s a convenience center about 6 miles away where we can take our trash, recycling, electronics, old motor oil, and even clothing for donation. It’s free. We go every 3-4 weeks and it might take 30 minutes if we have to wait for our turn.
Assuming $35/month, we’ve saved over $4K by doing it ourselves. The landfill is a bit further and it used to cost $10/truckload, but I think it’s gone up to $20. When we were doing remodeling, we went there several times, but again, in 10 years, I don’t think we’ve spent $300 at the dump. Plus they have a freebie day twice a year to get rid of hazardous materials, like old paints.
Don’t do shit like leave your garbage in someone else’s dumpster. For one thing, it’s illegal and the fine is probably going to be more than you save in trash fees. Plus, how much of a cheapskate are you that you can’t afford the trash fees? (And if you are that cheap, take it to the transfer station yourself; as frugal Nutmeggers have done for decades.)
