I’m in an apartment alone, with no garbage disposal. I try to remember to put food waste in a kitchen bag before it goes in the garbage. The trash goes out when it’s full or when it starts to smell.
I usually go 2-3 weeks without taking it to the curb, but when the trash is full or stinky, I take it to the trash can. I can’t stand having smelly trash in the house!
It does take 7-10 days to fill a bag since I recycle paper and cans. I try to fill it before I take it out, with the bathroom, office and bedroom trash like thelurkinghorror does. I also go through the fridge and look for stuff to toss before I put a bag out.
Rarely do I feel like I am putting out an inadequately-filled bag but it does happen. I also make sure I buy cheap trash bags so I don’t feel like I’m wasting money if that happens.
Food trash goes in a smaller plastic bag, like a grocery store bag, then in with the rest of the trash at the end of the day. That’s always been sufficient to keep the bugs at bay for me.
When it’s full or when it stinks. Since are a family who cook a lot, it’s almost always full before it stinks. If it isn’t, we add the other wastebaskets to it before taking it out.
We have a little compost bucket thing that looks like a miniature garbage can, with a lid. Inside the lid is a carbon/charcoal filter that helps to keep the odor in control.
We have a compost pile so we just dump it there every few days, but if you live in an apartment you could get one that would hold your table scraps for a week and then put them in the trash the day before garbage pick up.
One of these things.
http://www.gardeners.com/stainless-steel-compost-crock/
Linky doesn’t seem to work upon review, google it.
I’ve been buying those cheap-o filmy scented pink, white, or blue trash liners on a roll (about 28) from the dollar store. In the summer I take my trash out to the outdoor bin every evening (if I’m throwing away food scraps). They aren’t that sturdy, but if I have a small amount of garbage, not more than would fill a grocery store plastic bag, it seems like overkill to use the (relatively) expensive Hefty bags every day. My husband, in his bachelor days, had a huge trash can - no cover! - lined with a black lawn and leaf bag in his kitchen and left it there all week! Ewww! I put a stop to that.
Compostable garbage gets taken out every day or two when we clean the cats’ litter box.
Non-compostable garbage gets taken out every two weeks, since our weekly garbage collection alternates between recyclable and non-recyclable garbage.
We usually fill up one trash can a week, between the kitchen/bathroom trash and the cat poop bags.
Cat bags go straight to the trash can, every time the boxes get cleaned out. No way is that staying in the house one moment longer than necessary! Kitchen trash goes out weekly unless it really smells, but I try to keep odors down by keeping stinky stuff in the fridge or freezer and not tossing them till trash night. If I’m thinking ahead, I’ll plan meal prep around trash day - I’ll buy the big family pack of chicken breasts on the weekend, and then wait till trash night to split them up, trim off the fat, and freeze them. That way all that chicken-juiced packaging and those scraps of chicken fat don’t sit around in the kitchen for days.
I’m also making a very big effort lately to cut down on my food waste, so I hope that reduces my trash.
Our trash gets divided into three types for clollection:
Recycling
Compost
Garbage
Since most of what we put out is of the first two types, we only take out the garbage proper when it is full.
As for the compost (which can get stinky), we take it out when it smells or when it is full, whichever comes first. However, it has a tight fitting lid so no flies get in. (And we cook a lot so it gets full far more often than stinky).
We actually downsized our rubbish bin because it was getting smelly before it was full. So now it gets changed every two to three days.