two questions regarding trash and clean ups

[hereyago]

When I lived in a house it was once a week for regular trash and every other week for recycle.

I am in an apartment now and the dumpster truck comes a couple times a week.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We get trash pick up and yard waste pick up once a week and then recycle every other week.

We don't really have any specific groups that organize litter pickups. People needing community service do litter pickups on major roads, but I guess communities/neighborhoods just kind of clean up their own yards.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

If you live in a place where the city/town does trash pick ups how frequently does that occur say for single family homes or places without dumpster service?

Do you think it is a typical thing to have occasional neighborhood/community clean up days for volunteers or is that always the job of the department of public works?

A friend and I have different thoughts/experiences with both of these so just wondering what is common.

The garbage pick up is via a garbage service in our city. Once a week. It used to be paid though the water bill, but it's separate now. We have separate bins (garbage, recycle, and organic) that all get picked up the same day (different trucks). We are allowed 4 bulky pickups a year (big stuff that doesn't fit in bins). Street sweeping is done by the city, once a week. The condo community (across the street) have dumpsters that are picked up the same day as our trash.

Neighborhood clean up days (not done in our neighborhood) are usually a community organized/volunteer thing. Such things generally happen more in the beach communities here, not so much in urban settings.

 

[Orion Nebula]

Weekly for both trash and recycling here.

 

[Skippy918]

Weekly for trash and every other week for recycling. Some areas have compost pickup too.

 

[VandVsmama]

Our trash pick up is once a week. But every 6 weeks, there's bulk trash pick up, when you can put big bulky items out on the curb and they'll come pick up the large stuff for free that normally you'd have to haul to the dump yourself. It's pretty great.

 

[mjkacmom]

Live in NJ, trash pickup is twice a week, recycling, greens, bulky objects one a week. Our parks department is out there every day working on the parks, plus various organizations will have volunteer planting days for planters on Main Street. Everything looks nice.

 

[barb969]

We get trash, recycling and yard waste pickup once a week all on the same day.

 

[godisney14]

Compost/trash/recycling bins are picked up once a week, and we pay to the trash company for the service.

Somewhat OT. Something I really have come to appreciate in my town/city is street cleaning that comes once or twice a week. The difference really shows every time I drive outside our borders.

 

[bcla]

Where does everyone put it though? We're required to provide our own cans, and most get something like a Rubbermaid Roughneck or Rubbermaid Commercial trash can. The neighboring areas all seem to provide rolling containers that are designed to work with mechanical lifts.

Around here it's all private contractors doing pickup. Ours is an independent company, but a few of the neighboring areas contract with Waste Management or are city operated.

 

[Katie Little]

I live in central VA and our trash day is once a week, and once a month is bulk day (thats where the big truck comes and gets bigger things like old couches/brush). We can also haul 500 pounds of trash to the dump each month for free after that it's $5 a ton.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We're required to provide our own cans, and most get something like a Rubbermaid Roughneck or Rubbermaid Commercial trash can.

The trash company provides the bins. You can get different sizes. Like this:


They have different color lids for trash (blue), recycling (grey) and organic (green). You can get up to 2 green waste cans and 1 each of the other two for no additional cost (regardless of actual can size). You can pay for more if you want more.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Where does everyone put it though? We're required to provide our own cans, and most get something like a Rubbermaid Roughneck or Rubbermaid Commercial trash can. The neighboring areas all seem to provide rolling containers that are designed to work with mechanical lifts.

Around here it's all private contractors doing pickup. Ours is an independent company, but a few of the neighboring areas contract with Waste Management or are city operated.

Trash and recycling bins are required to be provided to residents by the county.

In my city you can pay to have a yard waste bin if you want but otherwise you'd need to put it in brown bags or whatnot and limbs bundled (so long as they are under a certain size). In my city you can also pay for an additional recycling bin if want.

Yes the lifts are primarily what they use in my county. The city requests you leave around 3 feet between bins if possible as it makes it easier for the mechanical arms to pick it up.

Our trash is 95 gallon size, the recycling is 65 gallons (which is what we have and what most people have) but you can request for free a 95 gallon size if you want. If you want to purchase a yard waste bin it's a 95 gallon size. Not every city has the same size but generally speaking in the county it's ample enough.

 

[bcla]

Yes the lifts are primarily what they use in my county. The city requests you leave around 3 feet between bins if possible as it makes it easier for the mechanical arms to pick it up.

Our contractor still does it the old fashioned way. They even use massive aluminum cans used to consolidate waste from several homes in order to place in the truck.

I guess the standard style lift just picks up by the metal bar and the lid just drops open by design. However, I've heard of a variation of that used where there are bears that have to be unlocked first. Other areas recommend having them in a heatproof storage shed. Around here we certainly can't leave out our trash overnight because raccoons will just get into it.

Since it's done by hand we don't really need to worry about leaving room. But where use the lifts there has to be room either in front of the driveway or blocking part of a parking space. I guess some areas have alleyways behind homes.

 

[Meriweather]

Recycling once a week.....trash once a week. Different days.
We can have bulk picked up once every 6 weeks. Have to book it.

 

[tzolkin]

Trash once a week. Recycling every other week (same day as trash). All items must fit in the bins because they use the trucks with the mechanical arm. No large items or extra bags-- if you have large items or too much you'll need to spread it out over multiple weeks or take it to the dump.

In the cities/villages they have brush/limb pickup once a month. In our last neighborhood they also paid a company to vacuum up the leaves in the Fall.

I have not seen any organized clean up days around here, but have heard of them in other areas (usually volunteering events around Earth Day or a Spring Clean Up Day). I don't think the town or highway department does it either. We live on a busy road and do have to pick up our front yard regularly with stray cups/bottles/cans/bags. My husband and I just took a trip this weekend to the mountains (within 2hr from home) and were pretty shocked by how much trash there was on the sides of the road. There was something on both sides literally everywhere you looked.

In Rwanda, they have mandatory volunteering the last Saturday morning of every month called Umuganda. The country is densely populated, but I have never seen trash anywhere there. I think people just don't litter there because they know they will have to clean it up eventually if they do. Here it seems people just throw things out their car window and it's no longer their problem.

 

[Kittyblue]

We have garbage and recycling once a week and green waste every other week.

I think volunteer community clean up days are a nice idea. I don’t recall any specific organized clean up days here but there’s a few different people I’ve seen picking up trash at the park while they’re out walking. When I go hiking at the preserve I pick up trash.

 

[fortwildernessishome]

We have owned our home in a small New England town for 33 years and have never had our garbage picked up! We have a transfer station 4 miles from our house, so we have to toss everything in our vehicles and drive it there. We pay the typical high taxes that are the norm for the northeast, but get very few perks in our town!

 

[Adelle Dazeem]

Our trash, recycling, and green bins are picked up once a week. Once a year, the city has their big clean up service where we can put out stuff like old appliances, lard yard scraps like big tree limbs, hazardous waste such as used motor oil, etc. I confess that I love that time of year just to watch people scavenge though everything. It amazes me what people will take home and make useable either for themselves or to sell. I think they do such a great service to keep things out of our landfills.

 

[AuntieMe3]

We have trash pickup once a week. We live in the desert and there is a lot of open space around that, unfortunately, people think they can come and just dump trash. We have occasional desert clean up days sponsored by the city. They supply the supplies(bags, gloves, etc...) and volunteers work with city employees to clean up certain areas. We also have citizen clean up groups that do their own cleanups, which is awesome. They will post on a local FB group asking for volunteers, people will go out to help with the clean up or donate for the dump fees.