Let's talk about waste disposal/recycling where you live...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As a follow-up to one of my most mundane OPs ever, I was wondering…

How does waste disposal and recycling work where you live?

(British-American English glossary: rubbish=trash, bin=trash can, wheelie-bin=a big trash can that goes outside your house, skip=dumpster)

Where I am (in the south-eastern United Kingdom) we have three separate wheelie-bins per home: one is for non-recyclable rubbish (which pretty much anything can go in, although we are sternly reminded that food waste does *not *go in these), another is for recyclables (plastic, cardboard…) and a third is for food and garden waste. The non-recyclables are picked up one week, and the recyclables the other (the food/garden waste is done every week - but that stuff goes in a much smaller wheelie-bin). The bins themselves are provided by the local council, and they pick them up and empty them from outside the front of our house with a garbage truck (shamefully - I know the American word for this but not the British…). If I were to accidentally put something non-recyclable in the recycle bin, then the bin-men would refuse to empty my wheelie-bin into the garbage truck - they take this quite seriously.

Glass bottles, on the other hand, are different - these need to be taken to a bottle-bank (which is by the back of our local swimming pool); evidently, they form a part of a separate recyclying eco-system. So, every week or so I have to haul them out separately (which is a harrowing reminder that I drink too much).

If we are caught with more rubbish than the fortnightly collection can deal with (which is fairly often), then I have to go to the local dump/recycling centre. There, things are thrown into skips - the categorisation for what-goes-where is different there, but I won’t go into that…

This system is far from universal; I know, as I recently moved here from somewhere else 10 miles away and this is a completely different way of doing things.

Out of curiosity, then, how does this stuff work where you live?

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

2

Zero recycling where I live. Rural area of the US. I haul my own trash to one of several county run sites and dump it into dumpsters. This is paid for by county (real estate) taxes.

I used to be able to take glass and newspapers to a local school which had dumpsters which they would empty when full and make some small profit. But that disappeared several years ago.

I’m pretty sure I am not the typical example.

3

Do they charge for this service? The city provides the containers at no cost, no monthly fees?

Recycling is cost effective for aluminum and glass other products are more complicated.

4

Where I am Michigan we have reknown garbage dudes(which we pay for in taxes).
We are provided one recycle bin ( a plastic box maybe 2.5 feet by 2 feet by 18 inches high)for all recyclables*. More boxes available at their office, but you have to put a deposit on them.
We can have whatever types and numbers of normal trash we want(I assume there probably is a max size I guess) But most people have 35 gallon square cans which I assume are the same as your wheelie bins, Or standard 60’s sitcom round galvanized steel cans, or plastic ones of the same shape.
You can also go down to the the city hall and get bumper stickers to slap on how ever many other cans you want to be labeled for the yard-waste/compost truck guys. But most people just use those big-ass brown paper bags and skip the stickered cans. Also at the height leaf season they have vaccuum trucks that will suck them from where you rake them onto the roadside, because otherwise everybody would have 50+ bags or cans of leaves every week for 2 months.

You can also leave any other damn thing(except electronics of chemically dangerous stuff) you want out by the trash and they will take it in the big item truck. Fridges, couches, motorcycle frames etc, if the scrappers don’t take them first.

*they will take glass or plastic bottles without a problem, but in MI we have a ten cent deposit on all bottles and cans, so if someone was dumb enough to throw it in the bin, a scrapper will certainly grab them first.

5

We have two wheeled bins. One for “garbage” picked up weekly, and another for recyclables picked up every other week. I think you can ask for a third one for “yard waste” but we don’t have a need. If we have too much stuff we can also drive to the transfer station and dump a car load of garbage for about $15, and drop off recycle stuff for free.

The OP is right about it varying greatly. I’ve lived several places near here, and seen many different procedures. In Seattle, we used to get three small recycle boxes, one each for glass, paper and metal. Where we live now, we combine all those in one big bin.

6

We have co-mingled recycling here. Glass, plastics, paper, metal and cardboard all go in the same bin. Garbage goes in a different bin. If you have horses or generate a lot of green waste, there’s a bin for that, too (upon request).

7

Our utility bill is where we’re charged for trash pick-up but my rent covers that bill so I have no idea how much it is every month. It covers 2 rolling bins: one for bagged indoor trash and one for yard trash. No recycling pick up. It’s once per week curbside pick up and you better have the cart turned the right way or they’ll skip you. Found out that the hard way! The truck works like magic and picks up the bin to dump in to the truck. We have a small recycling center on the main strip where you can take your recycling and they have multiple bins so you can sort it yourself.

8

Rural middle America here. I pay for trash pickup with a private hauler. They take everything except bulk like furniture and appliances. I can recycle by taking items to a private center about 9 miles away. I do crush and save aluminum cans, but that’s it.

9

I live in an area (N.E. Indiana) which has been rural but is rapidly becoming more developed. I split trash pickup with my next door neighbor. He’s getting the better deal. He recycles nothing, I recycle everything possible. He fills the trash bin (96 gal.) every week, I throw a bag in every second, sometimes third week. I’ve learned to throw my stuff in the day after pickup, before he fills it. To recycle I have to haul it to the recycling trailers about 3 miles from my house. When it’s nice out I go every second or third week. When it’s cold I go when I run out of storage space/containers. They quit taking colored glass so I have cut back on buying my favorite beer, which comes in green bottles, in favor of clear bottles or aluminum cans. They are also picky about plastics taking only # 1 and #2. Another hassle because I churn out a lot of #5 cottage cheese and sour cream containers. Oddly, the lids are #2.
It’s weird when I go after a long interval. The attendants always sneak in some snarky comment about the amount of beer cans and bottles. I live in a very conservative/religious area. Like I drank three months of beer cans/bottles the week before I come in! :smiley:

10

Rural Tennessee. I chose not to pay for garbage pickup and take my trash to one of the “convenience centers” run by the county. There they have all sorts of recycling in different large trailers, and compacted household trash at no charge. There’s a single recycling center for electronics. I don’t have any real glass to recycle, but I recycle my soda cans and my cardboard. Food-type waste is feed to the dogs or put in the household waste bags. Horse manure is spread in the pasture (not the best solution, but I don’t have a front-end loader to turn a compost pile, and my horses only use a run-in shed, anyway).

StG

11

My parents live in a small town in Connecticut that has no municipal garbage pickup. They do collect the mixed recyclables weekly. You can contract with a private company for pickup, but most people take the trash to the transfer station themselves. There’s a place for regular garbage, a bin for mixed recyclables, another for cardboard, and places for yard waste and bulk metals.

On Saturdays, at election time, candidates for local offices will hang out there to shake hands and meet the electorate.

12

Iowa, rural, no recycling with our garbage company (the one that comes 2 days later to our neighbors does do recycling but they have a garbage can limit that doesn’t work for our “larger” family).

Family of 5 who order a ton of stuff from online so we end up with a ton of boxes and paper whether from online stuff, grocery shopping or from the mail (bills etc): we save some stuff for whatever (pc monitor… we save the box because a box that size costs us +$100 if it needs shipped back during either manufacturer or where we bought it and maybe bought additional insurance warranty), we burn all other paper and a tiny bit of plastic over at our other house (the plastic tends to be an occasional pop bottle or wax coated paper simply because whomever burns doesn’t want to smell plastic burning) and, for late night burns due to time constraints an aluminum can or 3 just to watch the fire color change as the cans melt. We’re allowed to do this out here.

We just went a week without being able to burn due to high winds, dry conditions and the chance of severe storms= tornadoes. My guys broke everything down, packed it down… and then put stuff into a garbage bag or 3 so I would quit complaining when the burn can was overflowing.

5 people (almost all adults) can put out a lot of trash per week when you don’t recycle.

13

Where I live, there is no recycling program. Where the rest of my family lives, less than 20 miles away, they have had recycling (all the recyclables in one large wheeled bin) for close to twenty years and they are about to start a compostables program also. That will be three same-sized (probably) wheeled bins for weekly pick up at the curb (or in the alley for the older part of town)

14

Yucatán, México.

No city sponsored recycling efforts here. But there is a place that buys everything. Aluminum cans, PET, newspaper, cardboard, and metals.

I separate the recyclables and place them on the curb. They disappear very fast.

And compost what I can.

15

Southern central UK.

We have:
[ul]
[li]A green wheely bin for mixed recyclables - paper, card, metal cans, plastic bottles (but not other plastics like yoghurt pots)[/li][li]A black plastic crate for glass bottles and jars[/li][li]A small brown bin with a lid that clips shut, for food waste[/li][li]A black wheelie bin for general waste (including the plastic items that are not included in the green bin scope)[/li][li]Bags (sandwich bag sized) for batteries[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]The green and black wheelie bins are collected on alternating weeks[/li][li]The brown bin is collected weekly - we bag the contents in biodegradable liners like these - (an initial supply of bags was provided when the bin was introduced, but now we buy them at the supermarket - some people don’t bother with the bags any more, but this makes the bin really horrible to handle)[/li][li]The bottles and batteries are collected once a month[/li][li]There’s some sort of corrective scheme for people who persistently put general/smelly waste in the green recycling bins, but I don’t know the exact details. I’ve seen ‘red cards’ on some peoples bins - I think they eventually get fined if they do it repeatedly.[/li][/ul]

There’s a bottle bank within walking distance of my house (indeed they exist within walking distance of most houses in the borough, as well as in the car park of every large supermarket) - so it sort of annoys me that my taxes are going towards the collection of glass bottles when it could just be left to individuals (it would be better that way too - as the collection does not sort by colour, whereas the bottle bank does)
But I understand why the council did it - people are lazy and would just put the bottles in the general waste rather than making a trip to the bottle bank.
Not that laziness should be entertained, but their objective is diverting recyclable materials from landfill.

16

Garbage collection is private in my city. There are between three and six companies offering residential pickup (depending on when the last mergers and startups were). I believe some of the companies offer home recycling pickup for an additional fee, but it’s rare to see a house with a recycling bin. The city has a set of large recycling bins at the municipal building for people who wish to do that. Unlike some other places mentioned, there isn’t really a DIY option for people who don’t want to pay a trash bill. The landfill is 20+ miles away and I’m not sure it accepts carloads.

My garbage company provides a large wheeled bin, but they’ll take more from additional cans supplied by the customer. They’ll also take one large item each week (stuff like furniture and appliances).

17

In our county, you pay for garbage collection, and as far as I know, no one collects recycling. However, there are several convenience centers run by the county where you can take your garbage and recycling for free. There’s a single stream recycling container for glass, metal, plastic, and paper, plus tanks for used motor oil, cooking oil, and antifreeze, a large trailer for electronics, and places for fluorescent lights. There’s even a couple of places to leave usable clothing.

Since we’re a household of 2, we can go 3 weeks or so between treks to dispose of our stuff. The center closest to us is about 6 miles away, and I know we’ve saved a small fortune over the 13 years we’ve lived here by not contracting with any garbage collectors.

In addition, the landfill charges (I think) $10 for a truckload, or by weight for a trailerload. They also have hazardous waste collections twice a year for no cost, and they’ve got a gigantic mulcher so you can take yard wastes, then get free mulch. There are also several companies where you can sell your scrap metals if you’d rather not just recycle it. All in all, I think we do it rather well here.

18

In my part of Michigan we pay for trash collection in our water bill. Only legal cities are allowed to roll it into taxes. On the other hand, our recycling bins are huge, used for automated collection, and for the first time in my life I actually bother to recycle because the bins are, you know, useful. In my previous neighborhood we had the useless ones like wolfman described above, so I never arsed myself to bother. Between the garburator and recycling, I don’t even bother to put the trash out every week.

Additionally, they’ll take whatever I happen to throw out in the curb, and pickers won’t get to my cans and bottles because the recycling bin is too large to dig through. Also, because of the deposit law, there’s not much expectation that there will be cans or bottles in there. I use so few deposit containers that I don’t bother to take them back; they just go into recycling. (Therefore, feel free to bring your Indiana bottles to Michigan and claim my refund. Just tell the police that I gave you permission and then they shouldn’t hassle you.)

19

Spain. Trash collection is usually handled by either City Hall or a mancomunidad, a union of several townships. About any duty that falls to townships can be mancomunado, but trash treatment and providing water seem to be the most common ones to go that way.

Each town or mancomunidad has its own fees. Some collect these on their own, some as part of IBI (a tax on housing), some unite it with water-treatment fees. It’s generally pretty low, which is one of the reasons to join it with something else (less overhead). My own township is part of a mancomunidad which handles both trash and water, and our water fees pay for both.

There are containers all over the place, normally large colored bins (some types are coded by shape as well as color). You are supposed to separate your trash at home and bring it to the appropriate containers. Most places separate paper, plastic+metal, glass, batteries (containers for these are generally found at the entrance to supermarkets) and general trash; some locations separate organics from other trash; some do not want any plastic and metal to go to the “packaging” bin, but only stuff that’s marked as “packaging” (meaning whomever uses that packaging has paid a recycling fee for it).

Stuff which doesn’t fall into those categories (electrical materials, electronics, furniture): for large items there is usually a specific collection day, or a phone number you need to call to set up collection. For stuff such as electronics, there are both “green points” where you can take them and “mobile green points”, collection vans which follow a specific route. If you bring something which works and you let them know, many locations will set it aside and try to home it.

20

Is the deposit enough to actually get most people to return cans and bottles? Whenever I see something with another state’s deposit on it, it always seems like something that was set 50+ years ago and never once adjusted for inflation. Like, do people not on the poverty line really lug bags of cans around to get 5 or 10 cents each?