In our city we pay for trash and sewer. I pay once a year since we get 10% off by doing so.

Our trash is picked up twice a week. I have a garbage disposal for all food waste.

Our recycle is picked up on the 3rd Wed of the month. When your recycle comes depends on what days of the week your trash is picked up. Our friends, who live on the other side of town have theirs picked up on the first Wed of the month.

We put our container, which is proviced by the city, out on the curb and a truck comes by to pick it up. The driver never leaves the truck. He pushes a lever and an arm comes out and lifts the dumpster and empties it into the truck then sits the dumpster back on the curb.

We pay about $15 a month as a separate charge. Garbage is picked up once a week at curb side. Our pickup is a two man operation. One drives the truck, the other loads the garbage into it.

We have to take our recycling to a bigger town, 12 miles away, where the recycle center is open 4 days a week (3 days 8-5 and one day 8-7). It is not open on Fridays or weekends. At the recycle center, we do not have to separate types of recyclables. There are long rows of big industrial type dumpsters. They do ask that we flatten cardboard boxes. They do not accept glass, which I just hate. Too many food and drink items come in glass containers to be just throwing them away like this. Unfortunately, they can not find any glass recyclers that are close enough to make it feasible for the recycle center to sell glass to them. I HATE throwing away glass containers!

Our garbage is picked up once a week at the curb but if someone forgets to put theirs out, a guy comes around back to get it. They have a driver and 2 younger guys who hang on to the back of the truck and then jump off and grab the cans from two houses at a time. If I wanted recycling I would have to pay an extra $7/month to have the recycling picked up twice a month. We pay $18.50/month for the garbage pick up. The city burns the trash to provide electricity for the residents.

We have recycling (no sorting) picked up every other week, it's a 65 gal wheeled can. That's the standard basic routine and fee, if we were to need it - and we don't - it's not optional to have it collected every week.

Garbage collection is optional for frequency. I opt for the weekly there even though we don't begin to produce that much garbage. The only place I have for that can is right next to my car, and while it doesn't matter as much in winter, I don't want uncollected garbage sitting for 2 or 4 weeks at a time. To save money, two households of seniors on this block have garbage picked up once a month and they both freeze anything objectionable until night before pickup. I find it a shame in this economy they would have to keep bags of garbage in their freezers, and invite them to add to mine as needed.

Garbage picked up weekly, + recycling picked up twice a month is $30.33 per month, shown separately but included on our city utilities billing.

nita -- I opted not to have a disposal when we built this house. There were so many things a disposal 'choked' on. I have a pull-out next to the sink with one plastic bin for 'garbage' and one for 'recyling'. I don't miss the disposal at all. (Could it be because I don't really 'cook'? lol)

Living here is Massachusetts we often complain about the high taxes but if we really consider what we get for those taxes its not a bad deal.

Our trash is picked up weekly from the curb plus, on the 1st & 3rd weeks they pick up the recycle, which we put in one of those huge wheeled bins and roll to the curb. All recycle, paper, plastic and metal is put in the same container and automatically sorted at the processing plant.
On the 2nd and 4th week we can set out bulk trash (I.E. old appliances, furniture, mattresses and yard waste.)

In addition, we have what has to be the fastest snow removal in the country. Last year we had two 40" snowfalls within 10 days, yet they managed to keep all of our streets open the full time, with never more than 2" of snow on a roadway at any time.

If we call 911 for a medical emergency the first responder is a team of EMT's from the fire department.

All of that is paid for by our annual propery tax.

Our city has its own electrical generating plant which originally went into service in 1898, and we have only had two broad power outages since 1940, the longest one lasting a mere 1-1/2hours. In fact, last year they had to shut the power off in our neighborhood for an hour while they were mounting a new transformer and when we got the electric bill there was a written appology for the disruption of service. OH, and did I mention that we have one of the lowest electrical service rates in the entire USA.

We have large wheeled containers that are picked up by an automated truck once a week. I have one for garbage, one for recycling and two for green (plant/yard) waste. I don't generate much garbage and probably could go a whole month before needing a pick-up, but I don't want my garbage to sit in my garage that long...too much chance for bugs to hatch...so I put this huge can out every week with one tall kitchen bag in it. If I had a chest freezer, I would store my food waste there and put it out less often. The green waste has to go out once a week because I have lots of trimmings.

Here at the Independent Retirement Community, we have trash pick up twice a week. I use a large trash can on wheels which I put a large black plastic bag in. I keep it in the garage and wheel it out the evening before pick up. I don't need to put it out very often, since my Lottiecat is gone now and I don't have litter in the can. I do have a garbage disposal and use it for scraps. I don't do a lot of cooking. Some of my neighbors just use large trash bags and leave them on the sidewalk.

For recyclables, I save drink cans for my grandson to take and get small change for. Newspapers and cardboard are bundled in plastic bags, or not, and taken to the dumpsters, less than a block away, whenever I chose. Those dumpsters are emptied on the regular pick up days.

Pick ups are included in with the maintenance fee.

Sue

Weekly curbside pick-up. Garbage contract was taken over by the city. Billed quarterly by the city. Unlimited recycling. Large wheeled can provided. No sorting, Rates are determined by the size of garbage can you elect to use. We have the smallest available. Seldom fill it.

What we don't have that other surrounding cities do and even the next county is spring clean-up days where you can set out large items, clean out your garage etc.

I own property in the next county so I haul our junk there at clean-up days.

We live in the sticks--no trash pickup. We haul our trash to the collection center every 10-14 days. The bags just sit in the garage until we are ready to take it. We could hire an independent company to pick up the trash, but by the time we took it to the end of the driveway, we're almost half way to the dump. This way, it's done at our convenience, and at no cost.

We have curbside pickup once a week....one can is garbage, one is for recycling and the other is for yard waste. We are billed every other month...rates just went up by 5%.
I compost a lot of stuff, either in the compost pile or in the worm farm.

I pay $32 a month for weekly curbside pickup, no recycling. Since we want to recycle, we have to take it to a drop-off site. There are several, operating on different Saturdays. Of course, I never remember the schedule, so I always have to look it up. Everything has to be separated, including colors of glass. The only plastics they'll take are #1 and #2. The drop-offs range from 5 to 15 miles away from my house.

There is, however, a "single stream" drop-off site about 25 miles away that will take all recyclables together--no separating necessary. Every so often my DS loads up his pickup truck and takes everything down there.

Our garbage is included with the taxes.
Weekly pick-up of garbage, recycling in blue boxes, and the green bin for compostables.

We sort paper/cardboard/boxboard in one container and glass/aluminum/plastic in another blue box.

Food waste, wet paper towels, kitty litter waste go into the green bin.

Special times of the year, leaves that are put in large brown leaf bags and twigs and yard waste get picked up for composting and the city depot as well.

Certain stores (Rona----the Canadian Home Depot) have bins for electronics that we can take our old stuff, and they get picked up and recycled as well. If we took that to the city dump, we'd have to pay to dispose of them.

Gee, haven't heard of anyone having garbage pick up in over 40 years. Garbage being kitchen waste like: fruit and vegetable peelings/pits/cores; meat trimmings, leftover food, etc. When I was a kid we had a garbage man who came around once a week, collected the garbage. Garbage men were pig farmers who took the garbage to feed the pigs. These days, there are few pig farms around and the laws have changed so they're not allowed to feed them garbage, anyway.

It's interesting to compare the trash situation now that we have 2 homes. In the suburbs, trash collection is 'free' (well, it's provided by the town, and isn't billed separately--it's just one of the things you get for your property taxes). Every Wed, we put out our trash and recycling (a town-supplied bin for newspapers and large can for glass, plastic, aluminum) and yard trash. Several trucks come by and take the appropriate items.

In the country--where we're in a MUCH more rural area (we don't even have mail delivered to the door like in the suburbs, we have a box at the end of the driveway)--the trash is picked up twice a week--Wed and Sat. Recycling is only collected on Wed, though. We are charged $18/month for waste removal. We get a monthly utility bill that covers the things the town provides--water, electric and trash removal, so it's not all that inconvenient.

We have trash pick up weekly, tho we are very rural, but we have no recycling pick up. If we wish to recycle we take it to a center about 3 or 4 miles from our home. I love the recycle center because they have magazine, newspaper, cardboard, can, glass and plastic containers. In addition they have a huge Salvation Army container for both clothing and household goods.

In addition we have a spring cleanup each year, it's great!

Our trash pickup is also included in our taxes. We have two trash pickups each week: on Tuesday and Friday. We also have weekly recycling on Wednesday. We don't have to sort the recycling - it all goes in the same cart. The city gives us one large wheeled cart for trash and one slightly smaller wheeled cart for recycling.

Our trash and recyclables are picked up each and every week.Right now we have a 96 gallon trash and green waste trash can on wheels,the kind the guy pushes up to thearm and the arm picks it up and dumps it.We have separate trucks for the green waste and the recyclables.

Starting January everyone will be required to have this service and use the cans provided by the city or they will not be picked up.

All the cans will be the wheeled kind and the sizes will be from 45 gallon to 96 gallon.We will have a green 96 gal and a gray 96 gal for the trash.I chose a 45 gal for the recyclables as we recycle our own cans and bottles(plastic)

I'm glad they are finally doing this as some of the neighbors have the nastiest trash cans i have ever seen,no lids,and filled with maggots that crawl out and along the street on trash day.Makes me want to throw up.

We pay 19.00 a year for the special cans,and regular weekly pick ups are added to our water/trash bill.I don't think that's bad at all.

If we have any big item we need picked up,all we have to do is call and schedule it the day before our regular trash day,and have it on the curb by 6am,and we can do as much as 3 items at a time.Also we have a spring and fall big cleanup that we can put out as much as we want.
Kathi

I forgot to mention that they do large household pickup here in the spring and fall at no extra charge. There are usually two or three days that they pick up each time.

The also, at no extra charge, pickup up leaves, small branches, and general yard garbage for three weeks each spring and each fall. I think this is a great extra!

We do not live in a city - we pay for a private service, and they pick up once a week. A LARGE trash bin on wheels and a recycle bin is provided by the company. We usually fill both and often put out another container filled with recyclables.

We compost all the food waste we can - veggie peels & cores, egg shells etc & toilet paper and paper towel "tubes", newspapers,etc. We recycle all plastics, glass, magazines.

The city near us does provide garbage service, included in taxes. They pick up once a week also, and provide a recycle bin.

"We were just issued an enormous wheeled cart for curbside recycling. It must be five feet tall. It's so big that we're only putting it out alternate weeks. We could go longer but it would be too heavy to push! The truck is a one-man operation. The driver gets out, positions the cart, and the truck mechanism lifts and dumps. Previously we had a rectangular plastic 'bucket' that DH hauled to the curb on a toy wagon. The truck driver would have to lift these".

chisue That is what we were issued last year. I din't like it t first .I still put garbage in the big plastic bags and then put them in the container. We were also issued one ith a Yellow top which is for flatened out boxes, cardboard stuff newspapers etc and plastic like milk tea wter jugs
it i picked uip once a week now Jut have to move them to curbside (not in the street).
Here in NE Texas

In my NJ town, trash pickup is paid for through our taxes. Twice a week we have curbside pickup, with our own trash cans. The pickup is a one man operation, but it's not automated. The poor guy has to drive to each set of cans, get out of the truck, tip the cans into a bucket, and then send that bucket to tip into the truck. He gets back into the truck and repeats at each house. I feel so sorry for him, especially when people put out a bunch of tiny bags and assorted loose trash. In addition, we have a recycle pickup, single stream recycling (no sorting needed), every 2 weeks. The 2nd trash pickup of the week is also a "bulk" pickup of sorts where they will take one large item. The neighboring town has 2 regularly schedule bulk pickups a year where they'll take large amounts of large items, but not my town.

Helene

I, like Nita az have both a recycling and waste can, each we roll to the curb and are picked up once a week. I don't like that they don't recycle glass, but other than that I like the service. When we first had our house built recycling was an option that I think we were the only people on the block to choose, everyone had twice weekly garbage service but now it is standard for everyone to have both but I wish they had garbage twice weekly still. Garbage can get pretty foul smelling in the 100 degree heat for a week.

We pay a small fee with our local council rates for rubbish pick up, it's not optional unless you live out on a farm, and it's the same whether you put rubbish out weekly, fortnightly or monthly so no advantage to only doing it when the bin is full.
They provide large plastic bins with wheels and flip lids which are placed on the edge of the kerb so the rubbish truck can pick it up with a mechanical arm and tip the rubbish out into the truck before replacing the bin on the kerb. One bin is for rubbish and the other with a different coloured lid is for recyclable cardboard, certain plastics and glass jars. The recyclables are collected twice monthly.
Disposals are completely unknown here but until recently sewers were also unknown, everyone had soak wells and leach drains. I doubt disposals will catch on.
If you lose your bin you have to pay for another. One Christmas because Christmas Day was our normal collection day it was cancelled, and our bin was rather full. Impatient DH couldn't wait a couple of days for the special pick up so he took the full bin to the tip and emptied it himself. A couple of days later I went to take out the trash and couldn't find the bin, so I called DH at work. "Honey, when you brought back the bin the other day, where did you put it?" Silence. Then, "Uh, I don't think I brought it back." I went to the tip to check but someone else had souvenired it as they are handy for storing chicken and horse feed in. So we had to shell out for a new bin, all because DH was so impatient!

Colleen I love reading your posts. Your dialect and wordage always brings a smile to my face. I think "rubbish" sounds so cute.
I'm easily amused, aren't I? :)

Like you, in Canada sink disposal systems are not the norm.

Jasdip, should I have added that DH chucked the bin in the back of the ute for the trip to the tip? :-) And it's really "chook" feed here but I thought I should put "chicken feed" or no-one would understand me :-)

LOL Colleen. Good thing you're bilingual, or you'd be talking all by yourself, as you wouldn't get any responses to your posts!
I know I'd be going "HUH?" Hahahahahahaaaa!!!

I picked up "having a nosey" when a retail clerk asks if she can help me. Nope, just having a nosey. A friend of mine was married to a Kiwi, and he said that.

We live in the suburbs...trash/garbage/recycling collection is done by private contractors, contracted by property owners.

Our contract is for 2x/week, Monday and Thurs. Recycle and heavy items(furniture, rugs, etc) with Thurs pickup.

We have two 4ft high bins on wheels, with lids - one for trash and garbage, one for recycle.

Pickup is at the curb.

We're thinking of changing contract to just Thursday pickup.

Jasdip, you could also be having a "sticky beak" :-) or a "butcher's" (which is short for "butcher's hook", which is rhyming slang for a "look" ) or a "dekko" :-)

I had no idea this thread would be of such interest! Thanks for all the input.

Our small city doesn't like to call itself a suburb although many residents commute 30 miles south to Chicago, many by rail. We have what I consider to be good service for reasonable taxes, including excellent snow plowing and a forestry department. I WISH we had lazypup's great electrical service!

Commonwealth Edison owns the Illinois state legislature. We all pay high rates for awful service. At least our city has its' own water treatment facility.

I'd impose a charge for households that want a second weekly garbage pickup. Most homes have only two or three residents. The 'back door' thing is overkill too, IMO, unless a resident has a mobility problem. Little carts buzz up to every house, then dump their 'takings' into a standard size truck parked on the street.

azzalea -- I guess 'garbage' IS now 'trash'. I should be able to change. I don't say 'icebox' anymore. However, my 'trash' does still contain kitchen waste.

We just moved from a town that was really into recycling to one that doesn't recycle at all. It pains me every time I throw something into the trash that I would have recycled before. My kitchen trash can gets emptied at least once a day now where before we could go several days without taking out the trash. I had a recycle bin just outside the kitchen door in the garage where I would throw all the recyclable stuff.

Linda

We get three pickups a week-all at our front driveway. Two garbage pick-ups and one for recycling. One week it's newspaper and cardboard, the next is glass-metal-plastics. You can call for pick up of large items, but the town won't take construction debris. We don't pay directly for these pick-ups , they are covered by town taxes. e also have leaf and brush pick-ups year round, as well as snow plowing. I'm pretty satisfied with these services.