What is your trash and recycling service like?

[beks37]

The thread..."How many trashbags each week.." got me thinking. What is your trash and/or recycling service like? This has kind of been a sore subject for me lately and I'm trying to think of ideas to make it better for me.

We don't have mandatory recycling, so it costs extra. I have not yet looked into cost.

My regular trash service costs me $75.00 every 3 months for a weekly pickup of a 92 gallon trash can that they provide. My city does not have one trash company that does the whole city, we have like 10 to choose from. I only have 1 13-gallon bag and 1 small bathroom trash bag each week. I currently don't recycle because I'd have to pay extra money to get the recycle service and then maybe have 1/2 a bag of trash per week. I NEVER fill up my big trash can each week with trash, so I end up tossing in tree branches, etc to fill it up, because I'm paying for it!

I just wanted to see what systems/costs other cities have for this. It has to be better. Maybe you even have suggestions for me?

[Russ]

$63.00 every 3 months and we have AWESOME service. They have never missed once in 4 years of rural service. Unlike the former 3 services.

I would call around, ask if you can get an "every other week" service, or if you can pay a small fee once a month to drop off garbage.

[Starlight9803]

we live rurally, so we don't have any trash service. There is a private company that will pick up your trash weekly, but it is about $50/month. We either take our trash to the local dumpster/compacter site nearby or burn it in the our trash barrel. Our recycling gets sorted, and glass and newspaper gets taken the the bins at the dumpster station. Plastic and mixed paper has to go into town (I take that monthly when I have to run errands anyway). Metal gets sorted and stored in very large plastic bins behind DH's shop, when that is full, it gets taken to the scrap yard for $

[Neeley]

If you live within the city limits here you are required to have city water and trash service. It is completely run by the city, not an outside garbage company. The garbage trucks are city property and the garbage men are city employees. We get one bill every month for our water/trash/sewage/recycle. The minimum bill is in the $65 range. $12 is for the trash/recycle and the remainder is water and sewage.

We get unlimited trash pick up. Trash is considered anything in your large green curbside container the city provides. They pick up two days a week.

We also get unlimited garbage pick up. Garbage is considered anything that won't fit in your curbside container like grass clippings, tree limbs, small appliances, leaves, small furniture. They pick up once a week.

We are given orange bags for recycling. Our recyclable amount is also unlimited and voluntary. Pick up is once a week.

If you have large furniture or building materials to get rid of you have two options. One, you can take it to one of the pick up spots throughout the city on Saturday mornings and dispose of it for free. Or two, you can pay an extra $5 on your bill and they will send a special truck to pick it up from your house.

It is also against city ordinances to burn anything. You cannot burn garbage, trash, leaves, grass, etc.

[Mom23boys]

Our trash service runs every Friday. If it happens to be a holiday, then they run on Saturday. We pay $24 a month for our service. They also supply the big, big, big trash cans for us to dispose of our garbage in. We move it down to the curb on Friday mornings. (Thank goodness for wheels and handles).

We do not have a recycling service in our area, but I wish that we did.

[blitzen]

Our garbage and yard waste pickup is paid through our taxes. They are starting a new curbside recycling program that costs $36 a month to participate in. Plus $15 for the bin. Forget that! About a mile away, you can bring your recyclables to a drop off site, so that's what we do. The city also encourages composting.

[YankeeMom]

Here, you can put out as much recycling as you want & it's free. It's the trash pick up that costs $$. We have a 32 gallon trash bin and weekly pick up. We generally have one to two 13-gallon bags, plus three to five grocery bags each week. Although the last two weeks we've only had one 13-gallon bag along with the grocery bags.

It's $55-ish per quarter (every 3 months). That is JUST trash pick up. we get a separate water/sewer bill every quarter that's about twice that.

There are a few different companies to choose from. We just have the city do it because the prices were pretty comparable plus the city is more reliable than some of the crazy guys picking up trash in their pickup trucks!

If you don't want to get a bin (they offer 32 gallon or 64 gallon) you can buy stickers. They are $2.50/sticker and one sticker/bag. No more than 40lbs in one bag.

[mom2matty]

We have 3 large trash cans that are on wheels (provided by the city), 1 for regular trash, 1 for green waste and 1 for recycle. We get trash picked up every Thursday and our bill is lumped in with our water bill each month.

[Domestic Gal]

We pay $9.61 a month for trash. They pick up once a week. We have 3 trash trucks come every week. We have the recycling truck which they give you as many blue bins as you want to put your recycling in. We do not have to sort our recycling any more just put it in the blue bin and set at the curb.
Then we have the yard waste truck. You have to have it in the big brown yard waste bags or you can use your own cans. You just have to mark them with a YW so when they drive by they know you have yard waste. You can have up to 5 yard waste bags or cans per week. (if we have more we just put it with the neighbors and they put it with ours if they have to many)
Then the trash truck comes by. You can have up to 5 trash cans of trash. They will sell you a trash can or you can buy your own. If it is not put in the big 32 gallon cans they will throw your small trash cans in the truck. (learned that the hard way 2 times)

If you have big items that need disposed of we have dump day 2 weekends a year. You can dump them for free on those weekends. Or you can haul it to the landfill and pay to dump it.

[IntlMom]

we pay 23.00 a month. Once a week they pick up the big blue trash can. Every other week they pick up recycables too. Paper goes in one container and everything else gets put in another container. It's so convient. I really appriciate how easy it is!

[Natalie]

Ours doesn't charge extra, but it's rather iffy.

It's like this: for a few weeks, we recycled just about everything, plastic (but only #1 and #2), cardboard stuff, magazines....

After a few weeks it was: no cardboard, then a bit later: no plastic. Later: cardboard, and now plastic, but no... they haven't returned the bins for the plastic yet, so I'll believe that when I see it... Sheesh.

[freebs]

we live in a HOA that provides community trash that is part of our dues

[beks37]

Our garbage and yard waste pickup is paid through our taxes. They are starting a new curbside recycling program that costs $36 a month to participate in. Plus $15 for the bin. Forget that! About a mile away, you can bring your recyclables to a drop off site, so that's what we do. The city also encourages composting.

Wow! That's a lot for recycling!!

[Momto2Boyz]

DH works for the company that has our city garbage contract, so I can't complain... I'm not allowed, they pay the bills!

Normally, we would pay $42/quarter for garbage & recycling pick-up. It's part of DH's benefits package, so we don't actually get billed for it anymore, but the bill would automatically come from the city bundled with our water & sewage. It is the same for everyone, and includes garbage, recycling & yard waste pick up each week. The garbage cans have to be less than 32 gallon sized, but you can put out as many as you need to. They have the gigantic ones on wheels, but they are $5/month to rent, or like $96 to buy. Until DH worked there, we never had one. Now we have one and I hate it, it is a pain to wheel around, it gets away from me on the slope of our driveway!

I've always been pretty happy with our service, except the day that I caught our garbage man throwing the recycling bins into his truck. I didn't think he knew who I was, so I read him the riot act right on the curb. Anyhoo, he knew who I was and he and DH had a good laugh at my psychotic episode at the curb at the end of their workday. But at least he hasn't done it since!

[mombottoo]

$51 every three months for a gianormus trash can furnished by the company & a recycling bin to boot. They have expanded the recycling program to include all plastics #1-7, clear, brown & green glass, newspapers, magazines, corrugated cardboard, cereal boxes & other similar pantry type boxing, phone books, metal cans & aluminum products...they also take oil so long as it is in a clear container & marked.