[Windswept]

I know this may seem like a weird topic; but that concern has never stopped me before, and it won't now.

I feel fortunate that we have great trash pick-up services in the small city where I live, and I was surprised to discover that a nearby, much larger city provided services that were *considerably* less convenient.

So, I started wondering what sort of trash and recycling services all of *you* have available, especially the Europeans, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, and those of you living in the Middle East and various parts of Asia.

I'm going to do a poll based on the trash services with which I'm familiar. If I omit an option you'd like included, please let me know.

Also, please give me at least a full ten minutes to type the poll before you start asking where it is, okay? Thanks.

Trash is a part of all our lives, but it's seldom discussed. My city has only offered curbside recycling pick-up for the last seven or eight years or so. I'm really happy to have it, and feel awful for all those places where recycling isn't convenient for the citizens.

Thanks for any replies.

[InactionMan]

Here in the Big Smoke we have curbside pick-up every week but it rotates between garbage and recycling. Green garbage (i.e. compost/food stuff) is picked up every week (the city supplied fancy raccoon proof green bins for the new green pickup).

Due to a massive infestation of bedbugs in the cities hotels and homeless shelters all matresses are picked up pretty damn quick. (The hotels won't admit to a bedbug problem because they got them from business men visiting sex trade workers, a large number of which live in our homeless shelters.)

You can call the city at anytime to schedule a pick up from the Toxic Taxi for hazardous waste like paint and industrial cleaners. You also have to call the city for large items and they'll schedule a pick up time and the city expects you not to put it on your lawn till 48 hours before pick up.

And every Toronto homeowner is given one ton allowance for construction waste that you can drop off at any of the cities transfer stations. If you're not a homeowner or go over the limit they charge something like $5 for every 50 kilos.

To try to encourage people to produce less waste, the city is considering placing a limit on the number of garbage bags you can put out to 2 per pick up. You'd have to pay a nominal fee for each bag over the limit.

Overall, I'd rate Toronto's garbage pick up as pretty damn good. Though some long for the days when we had trash pick up twice a week and no recycling.

[SKMDC]

We also have organized lawn & leaf collection, and these great machines that come around in autumn and suck up the leaves.

[atomicbartbeans]

We burn anything that'll ignite to keep warm, and flush all the rest down the john.

[HOM]

I'm too lazy to check off all the answers, but here is what the Dept of Sanitation says:

The Department provides regularly scheduled curbside and containerized refuse collection services for every residential household, public school, public building and many large institutions in New York City. Curbside sites are collected either two or three times per week and containerized sites are collected from one to three times per week, depending upon individual need, which is based on population density. In FY 2005, the Department assigned approximately 5,150 trucks each week to collect 54,200 tons of curbside residential refuse and assigned 400 EZ-Pack and Roll-on/Roll-off containerized trucks to collect an additional 7,300 tons. The amount of refuse generated by the 8 million residents of New York City is subject to seasonal variations. The Department allocates weekly truck and tonnage targets to each of its 59 districts. These targets are closely monitored to ensure that productivity improvement goals are met. District Superintendents must constantly evaluate routes and tonnage in their districts to achieve these targets.

They pick up trash 3 times a week, recycling twice, and large items (sofas, boilers, ect) on Fridays in my neighborhood.



That means that they clean the streets, which in my neighborhood they do once a week at different times depending on the street.

[torifile]

Carol, your polls make my head hurt.

[atomicbartbeans]

It's actually 13 polls in one.

[InactionMan]

Oh, and because no one in Onatrio will take our trash we have to ship it to whoever will take it off our hands for a few bucks, so all of Toronto's garbage ends up in a giant landfill in Michigan.

Thanks Michigan!

[Windswept]

Well, I try to be comprehensive.

Sorry if it's a strain.

[ghoti]

What's interesting is that here in the US, "recyclables" are all thrown in one bin, whereas in Europe, you have separate ones for paper, plastic, white glass, brown/green glass, and sometimes for composite packaging materials (like milk cartons) and biodegradable stuff (for people who don't live in single-family houses, which is much more common in Europe). So there's no/much less need for sorting through very different types of things to recycle.

Also, plastic bottles and cans are much more common here than in Europe, where beer, mineral water, etc. are mostly sold in glass bottles that you return to the store to get your deposit back (and that are refilled rather than molten down).

Just thought I'd throw that in ...

[BlueRabbit]

At my dorm there's a large trash bin + large recycling bin on each floor, and you can throw all your stuff in there. It's really convenient.

At home we have 3 large bins: trash, recycling, and yard waste. They're collected weekly except the yard waste is biweekly. Yeah, the Northwest is really big on the whole recycling thing. I think in the city of Seattle itself they'll even give you a warning if you put recycling in the trash.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by ghoti What's interesting is that here in the US, "recyclables" are all thrown in one bin, whereas in Europe, you have separate ones for paper, plastic, white glass, brown/green glass, and sometimes for composite packaging materials (like milk cartons) and biodegradable stuff (for people who don't live in single-family houses, which is much more common in Europe). So there's no/much less need for sorting through very different types of things to recycle.

Yeah, but are all these separate categories of recyclables picked up at curbside? Or do the people have to haul it somewhere themselves?

Also, plastic bottles and cans are much more common here than in Europe, where beer, mineral water, etc. are mostly sold in glass bottles that you return to the store to get your deposit back (and that are refilled rather than molten down).

But I bet a lot of people just throw the bottles away, rather than drag them back to the store for a few pennies refund. Anytime the recycling process is inconvenient for the citizen, the likelihood increases that he *won't* participate in it. Don't you think?

[Artap99]

I just wanted to see if I could actually click on all of them

[ghoti]

Originally Posted by Windswept Yeah, but are all these separate categories of recyclables picked up at curbside? Or do the people have to haul it somewhere themselves?

It depends. In many places, only trash and biodegradable are picked up, you have to haul the rest to the nearest recycling place - which is just a bunch of large bins, and you're usually not that far way from one (especially when you're in a large city, but also out in the countryside). In some more remote places, they also pick up other stuff, though not every week.

Originally Posted by Windswept But I bet a lot of people just throw the bottles away, rather than drag them back to the store for a few pennies refund.

No, because it's rather expensive A case of beer (where you pay for 20 bottles plus the case) is several (5-8, I'd guess) Euros, so it pays to bring it back. And it's no big deal, you usually just drop it off somewhere near the entrance, where they give you a receipt that you can use to not pay the deposit on the new case you buy. It's different for other bottles, but even there people are usually quite conscious of what to do with them. It just feels wrong to through a bottle or a magazine in the normal trash.

Originally Posted by Windswept Anytime the recycling process is inconvenient for the citizen, the likelihood increases that he *won't* participate in it. Don't you think?

Certainly. But in many places (I can't speak for the whole of Europe, of course), it's done quite well and is no big deal. Also, as said above, people just have have a different attitude towards throwing away materials that can be easily recycled. It's not only a question of price. Same with cars that use less gas, btw, though that's even more off topic

[alcimedes]

I had a friend who worked in the trash industry. The reason a lot of companies put all recyclables into one container is that it's cheaper to have someone hand sort it at the back end then to trust people to sort it properly up front.

You get someone who tosses metal in the glass, glass in the metal plastic in the wrong place etc. and it costs them more money than dude sorting them on a conveyer belt.

[ghoti]

They have to sift through the stuff of course, but I guess that's much faster when it's already pretty well sorted. They also have some automated sorting, especially for aluminum cans (which I left out of my list above), where people also throw in tin cans and other metals.

[*Joe*]

Just to give the European experience from a European citizen:
It varies across the continent, but where I live in the UK we have a Green bin for all compostable waste, and a Black bin for all landfill waste.
In addition, we have a black 'box' for paper, glass, and cans as well as a blue 'box' for plastic.
All the recycleables are sorted at the kerbside, the garbage lorries have seperate compartments for each item and the sanitation workers sort it as they collect.
Large items are collected by the council, but not reguarly, you just phone them and they come over and take it away.
All electrical waste is the responsibility of the manufacturer, most consumeables such as toner and ink cartridges come with postage-paid packaging to send them back. Larger items can be returned to the store where purchased for recycling.

In response to the point about most products coming in returnable glass, that certainly isn't the case in the UK, I have never and I mean never had a product that comes in a returnable bottle, most products come in plastic or cans. The only glass we collect is jars and wine bottles.
I recall a similar situation in france. The only country in Europe that I am certain has national standardized glass bottles for all products with a returnable deposit is Germany, when I went there all products came in identical bottles and the supermarkets had a machine which sorts the bottles and prints out a coupon for you.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by SKMDC We also have organized lawn & leaf collection, and these great machines that come around in autumn and suck up the leaves.

So do you just rake the leaves into big piles near the street so the machine has easy access?

[Dorian Gray]

Regarding ghoti's point about refunds for returned bottles, this is something that the UK sorely lacks. People do generally recycle bottles, particularly glass bottles (it's not rare to see someone empty literally an entire boot-load of wine or beer bottles into the bottle bank), but I've never heard of somewhere that gives a refund for returning the bottles. However this is indeed common practice in some other European countries. In Finland for example, where environmental awareness is more widespread, I always returned my glass and plastic bottles to the supermarket where I bought them. A machine at the entrance takes your bottles and returns a receipt which can be cashed at the checkout. The value is significant, about €0.50 per bottle if I remember right.

Originally Posted by Windswept Anytime the recycling process is inconvenient for the citizen, the likelihood increases that he *won't* participate in it. Don't you think?

Definitely, and the US system of throwing everything that needs to be recycled into one bin would certainly improve participation here too. However, even in the UK, public awareness of the importance of recycling is increasing. People of my generation simply don't throw out rubbish that could be recycled: it feels wrong, as ghoti said. Additionally, people are slowly starting to reduce their waste output, which is even more important than recycling. For example, like many people nowadays, I never use plastic bags at the supermarket: I bring my own backpack. Some idiots still request a plastic bag for their cigarettes and coke, but this sort of moronic behaviour is becoming less widespread, partly due to smart initiatives like charging for plastic bags at some supermarkets.

[DMBand0026]

Originally Posted by Windswept So do you just rake the leaves into big piles near the street so the machine has easy access?

I'm familiar with the area SKMDC lives, and that is what they do. It works the same where I'm at too. Rake leaves out of your yard into small piles on the curb and the city comes by and vacuums them up.

In some areas around me they offer brush pickup twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. If you trim your trees/bushes/whatever and tie the branches in bundles they come by and mulch them for you, they than sell the mulch or make it available for free to anyone who wants it.

[naren]

I don't know what ya'll are talking about, I have to sort out all my recycling by hand into separate bags. Dark glass from clear, paper from cardboard. All the recycling into one container? I've never heard of that before!

My food waste goes into the compost in the backyard. My actual trash output consists of one small bag each week. However, my downstairs neighbor fills the damn bin up every week. For which I despise her, as I'm the one who drags the bin to the curb.

[GSpotter]

We have
- green bins for paper,
- yellow bags for recyclable stuff (the bags are transparent, when the trash collector sees stuff inside which doesn't belong there, he will put a sticker on it doesn't take it)
- brown bins for stuff that goes to the compost
- black bins for the landfill / combustion

All this stuff is collected at the curbside.

- For some bottles you get a refund
- Others (e.g. foreign wine bottles, glass jars etc.) we have to bring to containers (white, green, brown glass separated). The next container is a few hundred yards away, next to a super market.
- toxic waste and electronic equipment have to be brought to some collection sites (only a few in the city)
- until recently we had two times per year a day where we could put bulky waste at the curbside. Unfortunately, in the last years the number of professional waste collectors increased (lots of vans with mostly polish license plates) and they often left a mess after digging through the piles, so it got more difficult for the trash men to collect the waste. The city now changed the system so now we have to call a city department and appoint a date when we can put our stuff at the curbside.

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by InactionMan (the city supplied fancy raccoon proof green bins for the new green pickup).

Oh, how I laugh as I picture those pesky raccoons, nightly descending in droves upon your innocent and helpless trash containers to ravage them mercilessly if given half a chance.

Due to a massive infestation of bedbugs in the cities hotels and homeless shelters all matresses are picked up pretty damn quick. (The hotels won't admit to a bedbug problem because they got them from business men visiting sex trade workers, a large number of which live in our homeless shelters.)

Oh dear. Are these problems openly discussed in your city newspapers? An infestation of bedbugs certainly would give the Toronto tourist industry a black eye, don't you think?

You can call the city at anytime to schedule a pick up from the Toxic Taxi for hazardous waste like paint and industrial cleaners.

Hey, that's cool. A toxic taxi. I bet a female on the city council came up with that idea.

And every Toronto homeowner is given one ton allowance for construction waste that you can drop off at any of the cities transfer stations.

Wow. We can put out pretty much any kind of refuse to be collected. I feel so fortunate not to *have* to make trips to the dump - for 'any' reason.

[thegelding]

mmm...large container for trash, truck picks up with metal arm...

same day is recycling (weekly pick up)...that is a different truck...sanitation man picks up recycling by hand and puts in truck

once a year (late fall) they pick up yard waste (usually 20 bags of pine needles and leaves for us...we don't get the vaccum guys, though some neighborhoods do this, but it is a "for fee" service, the bag pickup is free)....

large items we have to run to the county dump ourselves


the weekly recycling pick up is very good here...plastic, paper, cardboard, cans...
but no glass...glass you take to local collections...luckily one is just a few blocks away


all in all not bad here, though large item pick up would be nice...still the local goodwill and others will pickup large applicances for you if you call them and set up pick up

g