Talkin' Trash

I wish we had something like that here. I have to drive about 30 miles to bring in my recycle stuff and any yard clippings I put in a compost pile.

I just read you response below GardenGerty. My son and daughter-in-law are both "saver"and when they moved out a couple of years ago they really left us a mess. but now that we have gotten caught up it is easier. We do have a few things that having a pickup would help with. But none of our friends have one.

Sounds like a great plan. I wish it was that easy for me.

Hey! That's a great idea, I hope it works for her.

I'm the same way, I won't throw out a bag unless it's full. If I have a full bag by Thursday (trash is picked up early Fri morning), I will take that out and then just use a grocery bag until the next morning and throw that out instead of starting a new bag in the kitchen trash can. That way everything gets thrown out up to the minute the garbage men come, without wasting another bag.

I remember growing up in NH, the city provided free trash pickup, but of course taxes are high up there. I think I've had to pay a private company everywhere else I've ever lived.

What is a lasagna garden? I use a lot of the cardboard boxes to put weeds into then those boxes are placed in areas where a lot of weeds are trying to grow, that way I am killing their chances for survival.

I've never had to pay for trash pickup, it's included in our county taxes, so I guess I AM paying for it in a sense. We don't eat out that much. Most of our "trash" goes in the recycling - cans, bottles, cardboard - so we have very little "trash". We mostly eat fresh fruits and vegetables and meat that my husband has hunted, so there's very little packaging for our food. I think most of our trash consists of junk mail, and if we had a fireplace I'd burn it...

I didn't know anyone had free trash pickup! I cant imagine not having but one bag of trash and there are just two of us also. You must eat out alot and not have food trash stuff at home.

That is really strange, because the trash collection agencies do make a nice profit on our sorting out our recycleables and having them ready for pickup. I hope they will wise up sometime soon. Bill and I just finished loading my recycleables and it filled the 8 foot bed on his truck! I have no idea how much I'll get, but any little amount helps. My biggest thing is that it helps save our resources and doesn't fill the landfill as fast. One of our land fills has lowered their content by over 60% just by people recycleing!! I heat with wood, and I got a huge load of wood from one of the contractors. He was just going to throw it out, and I got it to heat my home for the winter...it's old wood and can't be reused so I don't feel bad about using it. I gave up heating the place with propane as I would go totally broke using it. One neighbor used propane to heat with one winter and their bill for three months ran $2100! OUCH!!!! One thing I plan to do today is to take some of the money from recycling and buy a water purifier. I have three huge bags of plastic water bottles from the people that live in my housing area. That's a lot when you figure that the bags are yard and leaf bags. I have three bottles that I keep for water and that's it... I refill those from places that have filtered water. (Due to my medical conditions, I don't drink water from a fountain etc when I'm on a trip.) I will say that it did take quite a while for our communities to get on the recycling band wagon. So maybe there is hope for your area. For fun though, I'll let you know how much weight and how much I made from all the idiots here that don't want to do their recycling thing. One year I made nearly a thousand dollars from a neighbor that was removing the metal siding from his home. Wow did that feel good!

I would recycle too, if it were available to me. I've looked online and in the phone book, and no one here picks up recyclables, which I think is very strange. I'd have to go to a large city an hour away to haul anything in too, and I don't get out much except for local errands in the nearby town, so that's out. I do what I can by using less to begin with, or re-using things that I can.

You have a bag A DAY? Goodness, I don't think I could ever accumulate that much garbage.

Are they leaving trash, or are they leaving things you just don't want? One man's trash is another man's treasure. There's always freecycle.

The landfills are filling up and then what? I don't waste much, but it pains me to pay that much money for my one stupid bag of trash a week. I just wish I had somewhere I could take it myself. The garbage men are making a killing off me!

No, there is no dump here or I would have been doing that already. Taking trash and putting it in someone else's dumpster may seem free and simple, but someone is paying for that, so that is no different than stealing. Going to the store and putting something into the can at the store entrance is one thing, but putting household trash in their dumpster is a no-no. Most of those places pay for pickup by the pound/ton. My small bit may not be much, but if everyone did it it would certainly add up. No different than saying that my taking a dollar item without paying for it is no big deal, they can afford it, but what if everyone did it?

Your neighbors have pick up twice and have that many bags a week!! Wow, are you sure only 4 people live there? I know my family of five produces that much. But we do some what recycle. But not as much as we should. But we also just moved. So, alot of it tends to be things we no longer need, broke in moving, crumpled newspapers and things like that. Once we get settled out trash should be alot less.

Good gracious, that's two to three bags of trash A DAY? How can one family possibly go through that much trash?