Today's culture differences question: if you have municiple garbage pick-up how does it work?

[rose]

I love these threads. The mailbox question the other day got me wondering what municiple garbage pick-up looks like in other areas. Normally, because we live rurally, we have no pick-up. We just take our cans to the dump and empty them into the GIANT pile ourselves. Metal and wood have their own piles. It's nasty but it works.

 

Recently, we've settled in to a home for a few months in a big city (Greater Vancouver, BC) while my husband does some work. We've lived in this city before but garbage collection has changed. I was surprised by few things. The way it works is that garbage and recycling is collected every other week, back and forth. That seems really minimal for both those things. There is also compost collection now, which is really cool. That's collected weekly. The city sells the compost as a fundraiser. Every house gets 3 smallish, colour coded cans that the trucks pick-up with an arm that comes out the side. If you pay more taxes you can get a bigger can but the default is pretty small. All recycling gets thrown in the can together--paper, plastics, glass, etc. all together. That's weird to me. Who sorts that?

 

So what does your collection service look like?

[LifeLovePassion]

We can choose haulers from an approved list. We have weekly trash pick up, we choose the size of the can and pay accordingly. We have. Single sort recycling service that is paid for through the city utilities bill, pick up of the 64 gallon can is every other week. We additionally pay for 96 gallon compost bins to pick up yard waste. We have 2 due to our yard size, this is optional. All pick ups are on the same day of the week to only have neighborhoods disrupted once a week.

Edited September 27, 2017 by LifeLovePassion

[wonderchica]

I live in the city limits. The city picks up our trash and recycling. We get two cans- 1 color for trash, 1 for recycling. They pick up trash two days a week, and recycling one day (the same as a trash day). You can pay for additional cans. When I moved in, my recycling can was missing. Apparently it's not uncommon for people to snag an extra when someone moves out. You can just call and ask for an new one in that case. Recycling is single stream, everything goes in one can.

Edited September 27, 2017 by wonderchica

[regentrude]

Garbage and recycling are collected every week. We put mixed recyclables in a special blue tub by the curb, next to the garbage can. Yard waste we wish to have collected is set out in brown bags by the curb and collected weekly on trash day from March through November.

[AnnE-girl]

Our small, very outer edge of a large urban area city contracts with a waste management company that collects garbage and recycling within the city limits. It used to be a city service paid with taxes, but that changed about 10-15 years ago. With the private company, residents are provided a "free" large recycling bin and can rent a garbage can, or use our own can and purchase stickers that go on the can each week. We get the stickers at the grocery store. In the cool weather, if the garbage isn't very full or smelly, we might only put it out every other week to save money. For the amount of garbage we usually produce, it makes more sense to use the stickers instead of paying the monthly rental fee for the garbage bin.

[ktgrok]

I'm in a smaller city/town outside of Orlando, but in the metro area. We have two very big cans. Black one is for trash, and is picked up twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. Grey one is for recycling (and yes, glass/paper/metal all go together). That one is picked up every other week, on Wednesday. Both are picked up by a truck with a mechanical arm. 

 

When I was a kid, the small city I lived in..technically a village...had DAILY trash pick up! You put the trash bag on your carport or at your side door and they drove small ATV type things right up to the house and snagged the bags. You didn't even have to take them to the street!

 

 

SaveSave

[Paige]

Our trash is paid for by our HOA so we have no personal choice in the company or service.

 

We have trash pick up twice a week and recycling once a week. There's no need to sort the recycling. They will also pick up large or bulky items once a week at no extra charge, but you have to call and let them know you want it. We have nothing like the compost collection. We don't usually put our trash out on the 2nd pickup day of the week, but  I can't imagine trash pickup every other week- we'd have too much. 

[MooCow]

Twice a week pickup by a crew. Any trash can you want, or just bags.The price is included in yearly property taxes. Recycling is a small bin and you have to pay separate for that.

[ktgrok]

 

 

Recycle cans are handled similarly as far as I can tell, we don't have a recycle can here, and I am not "buying" one.  For one thing, no one TOLD me anything about available recycling when we switched everything, second, it looks to me like it's the same truck (like I think the city is actually deceiving people, I am about 85% convinced it's actually the same truck making a second trip....drivers have appeared to be the same people.)   

 

Couldn't it be the same truck/crew but taking it to a different place?

[TravelingChris]

We have big giant trashcan that we roll up to the street.  That is once a week.  If we needed to, we could get a second big trash bin for extra money.  On the same day trash is picked up, yard waste is also picked up (March through Nov) and also bulky items like furniture, etc.  On another day, we put out bins with recycling.  We can only recycle #1 and 2 plastics, paper and cardboard, and metals at the curb.  In other places, we can go and recycle glass, foam, and plastic bags.  We pay for trash removal by a trashcan rental that is on our utility bill from the city.

[Lady Florida.]

I'm in the city limits. We have one trash can and one recycle can. We used to have trash collection twice a week and recycle weekly until the city went to automated pickup. A mechanical arm on the truck picks up the can and dumps it into the truck. Since they started that we have larger bins and fewer collection days. Trash is once a week and recycle is every other week. Everything goes in the same recycle bin - glass, paper, plastic, cardboard.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Lady Florida.

[EmilyGF]

At my parents' (CA) they have trash pick up every other week with a super small bin and recycling every week. They also have a compost pick up.

 

We have trash every week and unsorted recycling every other week.

 

Emily

[Tanaqui]

NYC has pickup twice a week. One day they pick up just garbage, the other they pick up garbage and recyclables. We have to separate our metals and plastics from our cardboards and papers, and we can't throw that stuff in the regular garbage or we get a fine.

 

The city also has food scrap dropoff in many parks, and is currently trialing a program where food scraps are picked up at the curb for certain neighborhoods and also for large buildings such as public schools. I know our nearest public school is in that program, but otherwise it's not in our neighborhood yet so I don't know all the details.

 

In the past we've also had curbside pickup for lawn waste certain times of year, but that's currently not available in all neighborhoods. (Instead, food scraps and lawn waste are either picked up in the trash or, again, you bring them to a dropoff center in a park. Oh, and some parks also have fabric recycling dropoff.)

 

In late December and January there are days designated for tree disposal. There are also seasonal disposal events where you can get rid of your medications, toxic chemicals, and electronics - the last of which cannot be thrown away of in the garbage normally. At least twice a year there are events where you can pick up free, city-made compost, as much as you can haul away. (Also, sometimes compost bins.)

 

If you want to get rid of your refrigerator or air conditioner, you have to make an appointment for the city to come by and remove the CFCs first, and then it's picked up on your next garbage day. If you want to throw out a bedframe or mattress, it has to be completely wrapped up because bedbugs.

 

Typically, if you're throwing out furniture or books or anything in good condition, you'll put it out a day or two early so people can take it. But usually you only put things out the day before pickup or you can get a ticket.

 

You pick your own cans, if you even bother with them - a lot of people don't, and some don't even do regular garbage bags, they re-use shopping bags! There's one house on my normal dog-walking route, lol, they keep their cans by the curb and built a little purpose-built fence around them. It's adorable, a 4-foot wooden fence surrounding about 3 square feet of space.

[Tanaqui]

(like I think the city is actually deceiving people, I am about 85% convinced it's actually the same truck making a second trip....drivers have appeared to be the same people.)

 

I'm sure it IS the same truck making a separate trip for recycling. First they pick up the garbage, bring it to the dump, then they pick up the recycling and bring it to the center. That's not deceitful at all, it's just efficient. Why pay two sets of crews and buy two sets of trucks when one set of each can do the same job?

[meena]

We live in a suburb of a large metro area. We have a large garbage can and a separate large recycling can, both provided by the city. Each is collected once a week by a truck with mechanical arm. The recycling is mixed materials--glass, paper, plastic and metals (no foam or plastic bags, though, so I take those to the collection bins at the supermarket). We are also allowed to put a limited amount of large items at the curb, which are picked up by hand.

 

When we first moved here, trash pickup was twice a week and recycling was limited to only aluminum and only a couple types of plastics, which we had to keep separate. When they changed to trash pickup once a week, I was afraid we'd have overflowing and terribly smelly garbage cans. And at first it was like that. But then the city revised their recycling program to include many more items that did not have to be separated. Now we rarely fill half of our garbage can and our recycling bin is overflowing almost every week. I have also learned to freeze meat packaging and scraps and wait to throw them in the garbage the night before pickup, so they don't sit in the can all week getting smelly and gross. 

 

We also have a yard waste pickup once a week. Lawn clippings and such can be put in regular size (32 gallon) plastic bins purchased by the homeowner. Any larger items like branches can be put at the curb but have to be cut down to a decent size and piled neatly. I wish we had a compost option here. I think I could get our garbage down to one bag a week between composting and recycling.

[scoutingmom]

Garbage truck and recycling, 1x a week. Same day, definitely different trucks. (Recycling trucks are blue). Some months have a yard waste pickup every other week. The garbage and recycle trucks are mostly with the arm on the side, but we have a few older ones that have a person manually dump the garbage in.

 

There are a few recycling drop off centers too. And you can call a few days ahead to have a large item picked up with garbage for an extra fee. It used to be up to 6 items for a single fee, but i think it is now just 1 item.

 

It used to be that our garbage day rotated after a holiday. So you might have garbage day on Monday, then after a holiday it would be Tuesday. So you never had a week buildup of garbage (or 2 if you hit Christmas / New Years). Now it doesn't change. I' trying to remember how holidays hit.... did we go a year without hitting one? I know they do pickup on Saturdays to catchup a holiday, but I don't think anything shifts for the week...

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[goldberry]

Wow, some of you get trash pick up twice a week?  

 

I live inside city limits, but no city trash pick up.  There are two companies you can choose from if you don't want to haul your own. We pay $16.95 a month for once a week service.  They will also pick up one bag of unsorted recycling. Previously we lived a bit further out and paid $35 a month.

[Suzanne in ABQ]

We live in a rural (forest) area.  We have a large (90 gallon, I believe) rolling trash bin that we roll out to the street once a week.  We put everything in there.  It costs $58/quarter (3 months).  They offer recycling pick-up, but the bin is quite small, and they charge extra to pick it up.  If we want to recycle for free, we must sort it and bag it up and haul it to town to drop in one of several dumpsters provided by the city.

[JustEm]

Our trash is taken care of by our HOA. We have a recycling dumpster and normal trash dumpster at the end of every street in the neighborhood that gets picked up weekly.

[Tap]

City dweller.

 

Weekly collection of one can for a set fee and each additional can is $3.50 each time it is put out.

Weekly collection of recycle is free with above service.  We have one large can for all, except glass and a few other exceptions.  All recyclables go in the large bin, glass has its own bin.  Other items are on the side of the can like motor oil, batteries, etc. 

 

Every Other week of yard debris/garden clippings.  All in one large can or two 32 gallon cans.  They will take a pile of branches 36 inches or shorter and a few other things.  There is a free coupon for an extra bag of leaves each year and free christmas tree recycling too  We can't put food waste in there but a few pumpkins are fine in October. 

 

 

They really make it very easy here. You aren't forced to recycle but there is a financial incentive to do so (fewer cans of actual garbage each month)

 

We keep two cans in the garage. One labeled wet and one dry. the wet can goes out weekly no matter if it is full or not.  The dry can is for anything that can wait to go out to the curb for a month or so, but cannot be recycled.  Bathroom garbage cans are often in this can since they are usually kleenex, floss, q tips (no one menstruates here and we flush toilet paper), soft plastics that cannot be recycled or random broken toys etc. 

 

I have a compost pile so I compost quite a bit throughout the spring and summer (fall and winter is too cold to add new food to  my pile)

[Arctic Bunny]

Same as the OP, but a couole of provinces over. No compost here, though.

[Spy Car]

Suburban portion of Los Angeles. We have weekly city trash collection with 3 types of wheeled trash cans coded by color. Black is regular trash. Blue is recycling (all mixed). Green is yard waste. The trucks have automatic arms that lift the trash cans up. 

 

We haul the cans (plastic) to the street. 3 different trucks come on trash day.

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

[gardenmom5]

trash, recycle, yard waste. weekly.  arm comes out from the truck.  truck for each.

two different size trash receptacles.  cost varies.

recycle - one big bin and it all goes in.   they have ways of sorting.

yard waste - one big bin.   then you can buy the compost or not.

 

all are elective - but you're expected to actually take your trash to the dump if you don't use trash service.

our former neighbors waived it, and initially they took it to the dump.   when the current owners moved in,  . . they found most of it had been dumped in the bushes.  (they had to fix so many things, they really over paid.  but they've had the money to fix everything.)

[wathe]

Weekly pickup for garbage, compost (green bin), and recycling.  Paper in the grey bin, plastic and glass in the blue bin.  Green, blue and grey bins for curbside pickup are provided for each home by the municipality.  Two different trucks.  One for compost and garbage, the other for recycling.

[Laura Corin]

We have rubbish picked up once a week. We take recycling to the dump. We compost our own green waste.

 

Most of the rest of the county has household pick up of kitchen waste, paper, tins, plastics and glass. The county has the highest recycling rates in the country.

[Loesje22000]

Once a month:

-paper collection (to provide in a carton box or bundeled with a yarn but we will get a happy yellow bin for that)

-old textile (to provide in a plastic bag provided a few days before

 

Every other week:

- green bin (we pay for 2 as we have a large garden, the landlord doesn't allow to compost, will be weight and taxed per weight)

- grey bin (rest garbage, will be weight an taxed per weight)

- plastics, metallics, drinkcartons ( to provide in a plastic bag, to buy in specific stores incl. the taxes for this)

 

 

Have to bring away:

- Glass

- Small Chemical Garbage

- household electronics

 

Large amount can be picked after paying 100 euro per limited amount

[Pawz4me]

We live in a very small town (incorporated to keep the larger cities surrounding us from annexing). Part of our property tax is used to pay for a private garbage service. We have two large rolling bins, one is brown for trash and one green for recyclables. Both are picked up weekly. Two different trucks with men doing all the work (no automatic arms on the trucks). We don't have to sort the recycling. They don't take yard waste.

[marbel]

We have trash, recycling and yard waste pickup, funded by our taxes. (So, people say it's free. :-) )   The trucks are the kind with the arms. 

 

The trucks come once a week. We have wheelie cans that go to the curb.  Recycling is single-stream. We get points from Recyclebank, which I use to get free subscriptions to paper magazines. Yeah, I think that is a little weird. 

 

The yard waste is for tree trimmings, leaves, etc.  Also in the fall, a leaf pickup truck comes through a few times. We rake leaves into piles at the curb and a truck with a big vacuum hose comes to suck them up. All the yard waste is chopped up and turned into compost, which township residents can pick up free at a few locations.

 

We don't have food composting, though now that I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure why fruit and veggie waste couldn't go in the yard waste can. But we compost at home anyway.  

[retiredHSmom]

Our HOA chooses our garbage service provider as we are not in city limits. We have a big rolling container for trash that gets picked up twice a week. Bins for recycling get picked up once a week and yard waste (leaves, grass clipping, branches) get picked up once a week.  We live about three miles from the dump so we take large items and hazardous materials there ourselves. I don't know how others handle those things

 

edited to add: we don't sort our recycling

Edited September 27, 2017 by Tania

[HomeAgain]

Our town does not have garbage service.  The default is to purchase a landfill pass and drop their own off.  There are a dozen small companies that do trash service, though, and we've contracted with one of those.  Weekly they pick up our garbage, every other week - our recycling.  I honestly wish it was switched.  We fill the recycling far before we fill the trash can.

[3 ladybugs]

I live in a city that is one of those cities where you can't tell where one ends and one begins. Our town is so large that trash and recyclables are divided into 2 areas. We have Monday and Thursday trash pick up. Thursday you can also put out large items and they will be picked up (couches, 4 foot lengths of carpet rolls, anything not hazardous). We have recycling every other Thursday. The town only provides us with recycling containers and NO lids. They are the size of a normal size garbage can. Our town used to make us separate paper from the other things, but changed it. We were never given a notice of the change so we keep things separate still for fear of getting fined if they change it back again. We can get as many recycling cans as we need, but no lids. Because we foster, we have to provide our own lids for our recycling and trash can. No mechanical arm on the trucks here. It is brute force that picks up the cans. 

 

My mom lives on the beach in Florida. So I don't know I would call that town, but it isn't rural either. Her trash days are the same as ours. Only she gets recycling every week picked up. Her recycling can is a rectangular box. So it is really small compared to ours. Hers are mechanically picked up. 

 

In 2004 I lived near Boston and I had a job in Wellsley (sp?) Massachusetts. This town is REALLY wealthy and I was shocked that they didn't have garbage pick up. Yeah if you were wealthy enough you could pay someone to pick up your trash and take it in for you, or you could just tell your maid to do it for you. So guess what I had to do? They had a center that had spots for all the recycling and then the trash. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

They pick up trash and recycling every week.  You buy your own trash cans and recycling cans (you can get stickers for the recycling cans that mark it as recycling).  Anything recyclable can be thrown in the cans (no sorting required). They have people who physically pick your cans up and empty them into a truck.  They also will take yard waste any time.  The regular trash and recycling are two different trucks, but come on the same day.  You can also leave pretty much anything: appliances, furniture, etc. etc.  So no need to call for a bulk pickup if you go crazy and throw a lot out.

 

They would like to do the automatic trucks, but too many of the alleys where trash is put out are too narrow for those types of trucks.  The trash fee is included with the tax bill and everyone pays the same (with no limits) except for apartment buildings with over 4 apartments. I think they have to get dumpsters or something like that.

 

 

[Carrie12345]

I love these threads. The mailbox question the other day got me wondering what municiple garbage pick-up looks like in other areas. Normally, because we live rurally, we have no pick-up. We just take our cans to the dump and empty them into the GIANT pile ourselves. Metal and wood have their own piles. It's nasty but it works.

 

Recently, we've settled in to a home for a few months in a big city (Greater Vancouver, BC) while my husband does some work. We've lived in this city before but garbage collection has changed. I was surprised by few things. The way it works is that garbage and recycling is collected every other week, back and forth. That seems really minimal for both those things. There is also compost collection now, which is really cool. That's collected weekly. The city sells the compost as a fundraiser. Every house gets 3 smallish, colour coded cans that the trucks pick-up with an arm that comes out the side. If you pay more taxes you can get a bigger can but the default is pretty small. All recycling gets thrown in the can together--paper, plastics, glass, etc. all together. That's weird to me. Who sorts that?

 

So what does your collection service look like?

 

Our garbage is technically private service, but our large development bids on a group contract every year.  We get weekly garbage and every other week recycling. (Glass, metal, plastic combined, paper bundled.)  We provide our own cans. Our township makes small recycling boxes available, but I can't even fit 2 weeks of recycling in a standard can, so I don't have one.  There's a recycling spot next to the firehouse, so my firefighter family members are supposed to take some with them when they go out that way.

 

I think I would like compost pick up, because most seem to take ALL food stuffs. At home, we only compost plant material and occasional egg shells, so I'm still throwing a lot of compostable material in the regular trash.

[Zinnia]

We have county coverage. Three trucks that all run on one day, for garbage, recycling, and yard waste. The city compost the yard waste and anyone can come get it. Most people in the neighborhood pull bins to the street, but there are a few elderly that the trash men will go behind the house for. The trash truck has an arm, but they only use it if the bin is heavy, preferring to reach in and grab bags. Recycling and yard is picked up by hand.

 

About 18 months ago, we went to tgis system to save money. We used to have trash pickup 4 days a week--twice for garbage, once for recycling, and once for yard waste.

[Closeacademy]

Suburban portion of Los Angeles. We have weekly city trash collection with 3 types of wheeled trash cans coded by color. Black is regular trash. Blue is recycling (all mixed). Green is yard waste. The trucks have automatic arms that lift the trash cans up. 

 

We haul the cans (plastic) to the street. 3 different trucks come on trash day.

 

Bill

This is pretty much what ours does as well but recycling is only picked up every other week. And once a month you can put out random stuff & they will come by and get it. Like large items or brush. 

[Rachel]

We live in town. We pay for garbage pick up, but you aren't allowed to opt out or pick the company. It is picked up weekly on the same day, by different trucks. We need our recycling picked up weekly but we only need trash pickup every other week.

 

Trash is one large wheeled can, we pay a small extra fee for that convenience. The city provides a large tub about the size of a big Rubbermaid tub for recycling.

 

As far as who sorts the recycling, it goes to a nearby city where there is a sorting center with conveyer belts and people working to pull out the non recyclables. Paper is apparently suctioned off the belt.

 

Even though everything is mixed, if glass gets broken it is no longer able to be recycled as it jams up the belts. There is some controversy over whether or not this is a good method for recycling, though it greatly increases participation.

[JFSinIL]

Garbage and recycling are collected every week. We put mixed recyclables in a special blue tub by the curb, next to the garbage can. Yard waste we wish to have collected is set out in brown bags by the curb and collected weekly on trash day from March through November.

 

That is about what we do, smallish city over 100,000.  Only our blue tubs are large trash containers, same size as the gray ones for garbage.  Have to line them up by the curb so the truck's arm can pick them up and dump them in.

 

We use the yard waste bags, too - $2 purple stickers on them (except Nov. and May are freebie months), also stickers on any large items that do not fit in a trash can.

 

Everyone here uses the same city-selected service.

 

My youngest moved an hour south for school and lives in a townhome. Her city (bigger than mine) has more than one garbage/recycle provider, the homeowner has to pick and contract with the one they want.  She decided to go with whoever her next door neighbor already used.

[Elizabeth86]

Trash truck picks up trash once a week. I would love it to be more. This isnt typicall for the rural area I live in, but our county does it this way. All the others you drive your trash to the dump. We have to get our own trash cans. No recycling. On a side note it is free for us. All people in the county have pay the fee for trash pick up with their water bill. We live on the county line and we get our water from the county we dont live in for some reason and they dont have trash pick up.

[J-rap]

In our small rural town, the city hires one company to handle both garbage and recycling.  We pay for one garbage bin initially (can choose size) and given one recycling bin.  (But we can also use our own recycling container.)  Garbage is picked up once/week on one day, and recycling is picked up once/week on another day.  Garbage bins are kept in alleys unless it's a home that doesn't have an alley.  In that case, they are rolled to the curb.  Recycling is left on the curb.

 

Garbage will only pick up what is in the garbage bin.  If we have more things than usual, we can buy big trash bags with special orange stickers on them for $1.00 each.  We can fill those up and set them along side our garbage bin, and then those will be picked up too.

 

After Christmas, we have about two weeks to take our fresh trees out front and set them along the curb at anytime.  Usually there's enough snow on the ground that we just stick it in the snow and it looks like we have an evergreen growing on the boulevard.  A truck drives around town every day during that time and when it spots a tree out front, it takes it away.  We don't pay extra -- it's part of the garbage service.  

 

We're charged a small monthly fee for the garbage/recycling service.

[73349]

Trash, yard waste and recycling service are automatic for houses that have city water/sewer. We have a big green cart for weekly trash pick-up, and an identical one in blue for alternate-week commingled recycling pick-up. Trash must be bagged inside its bin, but recycling must not be. A textile pick-up will be added next year.

 

Yard waste is picked up on the same day as trash and turned into mulch. It can be in clear bags or large plastic or metal containers--unlike the trash and recycling trucks with a hydraulic arm, yard waste trucks have people who collect material by hand. There's also what we call the leaf-sucker truck, but that only comes twice a year and not, IME, when we really need it (e.g., they might come in early Oct. when 10% of leaves have fallen and then in Feb. when it's all turned to muck).

 

We don't have municipal compost pick-up, so I pay for a weekly service for that (having failed at home composting). It's industrial composting, so they accept meat/dairy products.

Edited September 27, 2017 by whitehawk

[KarenNC]

We're in a house in the town limits, so we get two large roll-out cans, one for trash and one for recycle (different colored lid, all recyclables go in together). We roll them out to the curb for pick-up. Trash is once a week, recycle once every other week on the same day. Bulky item pickup has to be scheduled and is once a week on a different day, like furniture, lawn mowers, appliances, etc. Brush and yard waste are done once a week---leaves piled and not bagged, limbs no more than 6 foot long are to be stacked together with cut ends parallel to the street and at least 8 feet from any landscaping or stationary object and not under low-hanging power lines.

[GailV]

One roll-out for trash (we chose size, and/or could pay extra for more cans), one roll-out for recycle, picked up once per week.  Sometimes the same crew does both -- they just bring the trucks around at different times (you can go visit the single-stream recycle sorting as a field trip and see that recycling really does happen).  We can call and request bulk item pickups on trash day.

 

Lawn waste is optional -- customer pays extra for it -- and is picked up a separate day.  We supply cans, or can use the giant paper bags. It becomes mulch.

 

Our prior location in a small town in a different state, everyone did their own contracting.  Trash pickup came whatever day that company chose, and in whatever manner they chose.  So, one street could have trash pickup several days in a row depending on which residents had what company. 

 

One company there used special bags sold at grocery stores -- you paid a premium price for "their" bag, and that took care of your payment to them -- the less trash you had, the cheaper it was.  My parents liked that system because they didn't have much trash.

[Matryoshka]

It's very different from town to town around here, as how to handle this is decided by each town/city government separately.

 

Currently, we have trash pickup weekly and mixed recycling biweekly.  When we moved to town there was a transfer station for recycling where you had to separate everything, but we switched to the pickup at some point.  

 

Dh's (rather wealthy) hometown has no trash or recycling pickup.  It has a town dump.  It is a thing to behold.  Everything must be separated, trash and innumerable iterations of recycling - newsprint is separate from cardboard is separate from white paper.  There is a place for everything.  There's a whole swap area for things that could be reused rather than recycled.  I believe there's also a composting area.  The trash section is tiny in comparison to the rest of it.

[SKL]

City girl here.  They pick up every Wednesday, it's paid out of tax collections so everyone is included.  Nowadays they even issue regulation garbage cans (one for recycle and one for the dump) so the trucks can pick them up without the worker getting out of the truck.  (You have to leave your cans on either corner of the foot of your driveway.)  The job of garbage collector sure has changed over my lifetime.  :p

 

My folks live in a rural village, but it's handled pretty much the same, minus the issued garbage cans.

 

My sister lives rural out of town, and she has to pay for garbage pick-up.  If she doesn't pay on time, it sits out there until she does.

 

Most really rural people can burn or compost or otherwise dispose of the majority of their garbage.

Edited September 27, 2017 by SKL

[TheReader]

When we moved into our neighborhood, we were supplied with a large trash can, and a small to medium sized recycling bin. The trash truck comes 2x/week and empties the trash can, and the recycling truck comes 1x/week and empties the recycle bin. All recycling is put into the same bin, dumped into the same truck, and I have no idea who sorts it at the other end. 

 

In Brazil, every house had a permanent "trash bin" (a metal crate type thing, on a post so it was not ground level & couldn't be climbed by critters), and you simply put your trash bag into the bin for pick-up (I think it was also 2x/week). The sold garbage bags that were color coded for recyclable stuff, compost/decomposing type stuff like food waste, and regular household garbage, so the right trucks would pick up the right thing &/or the trash would get easily sorted at the end destination. 

 

All trash cans around the city in public places had divided cans with compartments for trash, plastic, aluminum, paper & other (glass bottles were still returned for deposits so you never had glass trash to throw away, you returned it to the restaurant, store, etc.). I've often thought it ironic we in the US are so far behind this "3rd world country" in terms of recycling. 

[Kalmia]

Very rural here. We have a transfer station (which we call "the dump") open four days a week. For $20 a year we can dump as much household garbage and household recycling. We can also dump household level amounts (not construction amounts) of metal and wood for recycling for free as well as bring brush for chipping. If we have a refrigerator or couch or air conditioner or tires, we have to pay a small dumping fee per item.

 

I love our dump. So cheap! And so much easier than trying to fit everything into the can. Last week I cleaned out the barn and had 16 contractor bags of trash and junk, drove it to the dump, tossed it into the compactor. When we lived in the suburbs we had private garbage service (no public access to the dump) for $39 a month. It would have taken me at least 16 weeks to get all those bags through regular pickup. It's also fun to see people at the dump. One town where I worked, during election season the candidates would "stump at the dump" passing out campaign brochures and shaking hands (icky).

 

I grew up with an old fashioned dump where the garbage stayed on site, buried periodically, I found it fascinating and smelly! At that time people were allowed to pick good stuff from the edges of the trash pile. Also my childhood home had three dumps on the property. Lots of rusting metal and glass to dig through when I was young. Found some lovely 100+ year old bottles.

[Lanny]

The garbage truck comes to our house 2 days each week.  They also have a truck that comes one time a week, to recycle certain things from the gardens. The rules on what that truck can take are a little complicated.  

[freesia]

Suburbs of big USCity. We have twice a week garbage pick up and one of those days we have recycling pick up also We have bulk pick up once a month during March-Oct.

[Wabi Sabi]

If you live within city limits the city gives you a garbage can and a recycling can. They come in various sizes and the monthly rate you are charged by the city varies depending upon the size of containers you choose. Trash is picked up once a week and recycling is every other week. It is billed just like any other city provided utility such as water or sewer and not included in taxes.

We live just outside of city limits, but it doesn't differ all that much except that other than the city trucks picking up your trash we can choose whatever trash removal company we would like. They give us a big wheeled trash tote (we don't choose the size, everyone just gets the largest ones available by default) and pick it up once a week. For an extra fee they also give us a second large tote for recycling. I think it's around $8 extra per month now for recycling. If we didn't want to pay the recycling fee then we could take our recycling to a drop off location run by the county for free, but I think the $8 is well worth the hassle of not having to haul all of our recycling ourselves. 

[Arcadia]

I stay in a condo complex. There is a trash chute next to each elevator so five dumpsters in the entire complex.

 

The company the city uses charges monthly

“3 cubic yard

1 x week $392.74

2 x week. $785.50

3 x week. $1,178.27

4 x week. $1,571.02

5 x week. $1,963.77

6 x week. $2,356.51â€

 

I think our trash is collected twice a week. Recycle waste is collected by a different company once a week. So at least three times a week we hear the garbage truck. The single family homes nearby is once a week collection of all waste.

 

ETA:

The recycle company published rates is $35 per month per small bin once a week. We have a recycle dumpster for cardboard and two small recycle bins per trash room in my complex. Don’t know how much the recycle dumpster collection rates are.

Edited September 27, 2017 by Arcadia