I rent a condo, and it’s a communal dumpster (well, two, actually. One trash and one ‘zero-sort’ recycling.)
I assume it’s part of the condo association fees, which are then just passed on to me in the form of rent. There’s no limit, since it;'s a dumpster, and if we have large things to throw out (furniture, appliances) we put them next to the dumpster.
I’ve also lived in places with private curbside pickup, municipal curbside pickup (both a ‘pay per bag’ and a ‘included in taxes’ way,) and ‘you gots to bring it to the dump you-self’ arrangements. My hometown is actually a mix of municipal curbside and ‘take it yourself.’ If you bring it to the dump yourself, it’s cheaper than if you buy the stickers to put on your bags for curbside. Recycling has always been free everywhere I’ve been…well, with the private curbside it was included in regular trash, but unlike regular trash where it was a “one can a week” limit, you could put as much recycling in as you wanted.
I really prefer the dumpster arrangement as opposed to curbside pickup or bring it yourself, mostly because of the furniture/appliances part. You know how annoying it is to get rid of an old couch or dryer when you have to wait until the super-special, we won’t tell you when time to throw out large items? Or have to get it to the dump when all you own is a small car? Very, that’s how.
Forthnightly curbside pickup of a 35 litres (~ 9 gallon) trash can for non-recycle waste, with a yearly fee assessed to me by the district (Landkreis). Next year the district has to change to wheelie bins as non-wheeled apparently are to hard on the trash collectors’ backs; these will be much larger (starting from 100 litres IIRRC), and fitted with a RFID chip so I will be billed only for the times I actually put the receptacle up for collection at the curbside (which will every 4-8 weeks).
Forthnightly curbside pickup of a communal bio-garbage bin for composting (cost shared by the tenants in the house IIRRC) - that’s the only smelly item; forthightly pickup of recyclable packaging (paid for by a license fee by packagers).
Monthly pickup of paper/cardboard by volunteers of local sports clubs and charities that sell their take to paper merchants.
Pickup of large items, metal scrap, electronic waste up to 2 times a year, included in my non-recycle waste rate; I have to send a postcard with the collection date I want to the waste management agency.
I live in a single family home and until about 10 years ago, the trash pickup was paid through real estate taxes. Currently, I pay an additional $600+ annually for this service.
Mine is rolled into my city utility bill, which also includes water, sewer, and natural gas. It appears to be $15/month.
For that we have twice weekly collection without any limits that I’m aware of. There’s also a “trash truck” that comes by most days and will take large items or large amounts of garbage. What we don’t have, unfortunately, is any sort of recycling pickup, but there is a recycling center we can take it to that will even sort it for you.
Ours is paid through property taxes. Or maybe county income tax? I have no idea what it comes out to in terms of dollars. It covers:
*Weekly trash pick up. We supply our own bins, but I don’t believe there’s a limit.
*Weekly recycling pick up. They supply one giant container for paper/cardboard, and one for glass/plastic/metal.
*Weekly yard waste pick up. You can either purchase special bags at the grocery or hardware store, or get a sticker to put on a designated bin.
*Bulk item pick up as requested. I believe there’s an annual limit.
*Scrap metal pick up as requested.
I’m not not sure if this is the same funding stream or not, but twice each fall someone from the county comes by and vacuums up any leaf piles that are adjacent to the curb. Similarly, they will come by and pick up downed limbs and whatnot after a big storm.
Related question (in that it’s about throwing stuff away)
For those of you who have a recycling option, how much stuff do they accept, and do you have to sort it? When I lived in Ohio we had to sort paper from everything else, and they only took plastics up to #5. Corrugated cardboard was separate and only picked up twice a month.
Where I live now in Massachusetts, there is no sorting at all and they take any plastic marked with a recycling logo (any number) in addition to the usual metal, glass, paper, cardboard, etc.
Both places it was curbside pickup. I don’t remember if there was a different frequency in Ohio for recycling vs trash, but where I live now it’s Thursday morning, every week, for both. (So we put them out Wednesday night, and despite living in a heavily wooded area adjacent to a wildlife preserve, we have yet to have our trash gotten at by animals. knock on wood)
NYC Department of Sanitation provides curbside pickup of trash twice a week. This includes recyclables once a week and large appliances or bulk items once a week.
Basically, if I can drag it to the curb, they’ll haul it away.
The city provides garbage pickup and contracts out for recycling. They supply the cans. Recycling takes paper, cardboard, plastic, and glass. The can is divided, half for paper/cardboard and the other half for plastic and glass. The $16 fee (for both trash and recycling) is included with the monthly utility bill. This city also provides electric, gas, water, , storm water, sewer, and fire service, so you get everything itemized on a single bill. Rather than pay out for all that stuff in taxes, we don’t have any sort of municipal income tax or anything; we just get a bill for everything in one shot. My fire service fee is a few cents under $15.
For an extra $20 (which I opt for), the garbage workers will walk down your driveway and drag your cans out to the curb for you on trash day. After it’s been picked up, they will return and drag them back to your designated can spots. They used to do that for free, but a few years ago, started charging $20/month for it. It’s spendy, compared to what I’m seeing here, but worth every penny to me. I never have to drag the cans out at midnight in the rain, for example, and can go out of town and not worry that my cans will be sitting at the curb in the street for a week, signaling that I’m not home. If I have extras, like a giant box full of broken down boxes for the recycling, they’ll just pick that up too.
They also have bulk item pickup: any large object that doesn’t fit in the cans, like a couch or an old mattress, gets picked up once every other week on a designated day. That includes yard waste like leaves and fallen trees. You don’t even have to bag your leaves! You can just rake them into a pile at the curb and eventually they will magically disappear. And you can’t mix up say, a pile of leaves with a pile of tree branches, or a pile of old appliances with a pile of leaves. The piles can’t be larger than 6’ x 4’ x 4’, but you can have several. Even if you screw up and mix up your piles, all they do is leave you a nastygram sign in your yard (it’s small, I didn’t even notice mine when I got one once). I suppose if you do that habitually, they’d charge extra or something.
I guess I’m not get blasted in the ass by the “free” (read included) garbage “service” provided by the Condo Association Fees (out the ass – why the Hell can’t they keep the rhododendron from dying outside my apartment??? assholes). Dumpster in the street outside, blah blah blah. The usual.
There are four or five private haulers. Most people have either Waste Management or the largest local company. There are a couple of others, one of which is regularly investigated for tax evasion and illegal dumping (the owner spent time in prison recently), but they don’t seem to be very popular. My hauler has no separate recycling that I know of. They’ll take a certain amount of yard waste (and one large item) each week, and the city comes by once or twice each fall to pick up leaves.
$20-something a month on our water bill through the city, contracted out to Waste Management. We supply our own garbage cans but are provided a recycle can (and can request more).
Trash pickup is twice weekly (Wed/Sat for us) and recycling is once weekly on Saturday. Recycling is non-glossy paper, plastics, and glass. Trash is basically anything. I’ve put mattresses, a refrigerator, a washer/dryer, bed frames, an armoire, several entertainment centers and bookcases, and a sofa at the street at various times through the years, and they’ve always been picked up. The only exceptions are tires and car parts, which are not accepted. Oh, and the fridges and air conditioners have to have their coolant removed and the fridge’s doors have to be removed.
I consider myself lucky, cause a lot of the surrounding municipalities won’t pick up the big stuff, and another one requires that you use their city-issued garbage can which I do not like.