Your Trash?

We recycle all plastic, aluminum and glass into bins about 3 miles away. What few commercial tin cans we have go in the trash barrel at the recycle bins. Burn the rest.

We pay taxes for trash pick up whether we leave trash out or not. The truck comes to the edge of the driveway. Much of our trash is simply junk mail. We compost the vegetable garbage. We don't have curbside recycling, but there is a recycling center that takes certain things.

We burn. What doesn't burn I take to work with me in town and leave it for pick up.

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Teach only Love...for that is what You are

$8/mo to county. 3-4 folks make about 1 large bag per week but nowadays I'm throwing away an extra bag of torn garbage bags from my leaf collecting. Never buy garbage bags but can't take them inside because dusty with dried leaf duff and buggy.

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US Army veteran, military retiree spouse, and military; civilian; British NHS; and VA doctor.

BTW dumping your trash at work or Walmart is not legal unless your boss permits you. Not even sure paying trash fee at the office but giving them trash from office AND home (if separate addresses) is legal. In England they quaintly call it fly tipping.

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US Army veteran, military retiree spouse, and military; civilian; British NHS; and VA doctor.

Almost $40 a month for pickup here so we take it ourselves for $15 a trip every month and half to two months. It is much easier taking ourselves rather than have the pickup. Part of why we stopped the 'service' was to often the weather conditions meant they couldn't pick it up anyway....even sometimes when the roads were just wet. We are not allowed to burn any trash or yard waste here.

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Give Blood it saves lives.

We were stunned when first moved to the country and for the first time we had to pay for trash hauling. When we were in the City, they picked it all up and even the recycling and brush or grass. So - boy did we get a shock when we saw how much trash we actually had each week. Way too much!

At first we had to pay for 2 accounts to have it hauled away. We began to make a list of what we had and discovered we have mostly paper - paper of all sorts. Magazines, newspapers, Professional Journals, mail orders, .....tons of paper! We got busy and canceled everything that could be canceled.

We also started to compost anything that we could - even some paper. We save cans for a man who collects them, all metal and he even takes some paper to burn in his Work Shop wood stove.

Now, we do pay for one trash account but rarely fill it up. Only when we have guests in our Cabins do we fill it up each week. When we had to be directly responsible for disposing of our own trash, it was a real eye-opener and helped make us change our ways.

Wasn't this a topic of a thread about a month or so ago? no offence, just wondring.

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

Chickens get first dibs on most of the food scraps, except the dogs get meat/fat scraps.

Other biodegradables go to the compost pile.

Recyclables get recycled (I drive it in about twice a month).

Burnables go into the woodburner in the winter time, and get turned into garden mulch in the summer.

That doesn't leave much for the trash can; with five of us we put out one not-even-full trash barrel each week. That costs us $47 every three months, which is the cheapest I can find around here and we could put out two bags/cans for the same cost. The trash co. told me most people go with the 6 bag per week pick-up!!

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Kris
http://thislittleplacehere.blogspot.com/

I have been burning my trash for 16 years.
I dont know how much my neighbors pay every month but that times 12 months times 16 years has to mean I have saved a LOT of money.

What can't be recycled or composted gets burned.
Every couple of months dh will take a big bag to work and put it in the dumpster.

Yep. No choice but to pay because the $12.50 per month is a county utility tax tacked onto the power bill. So I use the driveway side pick up for chipped non recyclleables

All the recycleables in the aluminum/ tin-steel food can / glass /plastics trailer when the compartments are full and the bulk steel trailer when its stacked go to the recycle yard.

Never burn now that I have worm beds. Bury organics in the worm beds except for the cat litter that gets buried in the unused corner of the property.

No, it produces noticable supplimental income and I never have more than two driveway side cans to be put out to try to recoup the part of the $12.50 a month county trash pick up fee that I cant get back from selling the recyclable trash.

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

Noticing how much trash some households generate in a week is sort of a small hobby with me. In town on trash pick up days I frequently see several overflowing containers in front of particular houses.

Sister and BIL moved from here from FL. They produce more trash in a week than I do in say three months. But then I admit when I take in a bag it is a full and compacted one. Their's is loose. And I generate way more trash in the shop than I do in the residence.

Very little comes on the place without a recycling evaluation.

I sell extensively on eBay so some gets recycled there (and, yeah, passing the trash). Styrofoam meat/vegetables packaging gets washed, cut up in pieces and used for packaging cushioning. Same for many plastic grocery/merchandise bags. Incoming cardboard boxes often get cut up or reshaped and used for other purposes. I love incoming packaging peanuts.

I don't have a problem with landfills since I believe someday they will be mined for the resources in them.

Amusing tid-bit. On one of Gordon Ramsay's F-Word programs he was raising sheep in his backyard. Took their dung, steralized it, washed it and used the remaining fiber to make paper for menus for when they would be served in his restaurant. I thought why couldn't that be done in a cattle feedlot. Would produce liquid fertilizer and paper fiber.

Do you mean the styrofoam peanuts that stick to everything? Whoever invented them must have been a sadist!

Yes but is it fair to put your problem on the neighbors?

We get tons of questions about burning because we are in the trash hauling business.
So I called the Sate EPA about it they said that even though the state has a satewide trash burning ban its because of a federal law that makes burning trash a FELONY.
Seems a little overboard to me but its not the first time I thought the state and feds were crazy.

We CANT take burned material because where we dump wont take it...to many fires from trash that was supposedly out! For us its the stops that make more difference than the volume so we pickup whatever is put out at the same price.
And still some people insist on burning

My neighbors up the road a bit would burn plastics.
OMG you couldn't walk in your backyard, I couldn't use my pool, I couldn't sit on the porch. The smell would rot your lungs it was so bad.

They moved.

I am happy!

I'm thinking we go through this question about twice a year on this forum.

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Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania

"Everything happens for a reason."

we used to recycle lots, but the bins at the local collection point are always full. we burn everything in our outdoor wood furnce, and any solids that are left go in a pile. Once a year I rent a dumpster to get rid of solids around the place.

I should build some hoppers with lids that I can load and haul easily. at least I could recycle the glass, and metal cans

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http://lownfamilymaplesyrup.com/ max@lownfamilymaplesyrup.com
Professional Tool. 1220 Woodmere Ave,Traverse City, MI. 49686. 231-941-8003. http://professionaltool.com/

I think I do remember a topic that was similar. However, the original poster wasn't a member here back then and probably didn't find it in her searches.

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~TheMartianChick~

My latest novels:
Bystander: A Tale of the End of the World as SHE Knew It!

Christmas in Bystander & Other Village Tales

Coming Soon: A Slice of Heaven

Really annoys me that you cant buy anything that isnt contained or wrapped in plastic and usually significant part of it is made from plastic. Just the way it is though I wish it werent as I wouldnt buy anything with plastic in it if that were possibility. And slick paper (clay coated) really is a pain, if you do stick it in wood stove with hot fire, it burns but produces crazy amounts of ash. Dang post office gives cheap rates to companies that mail out this garbage, then I have to find a way to get rid of it. Should be a disposal surcharge to those mailing this stuff unsolicited, not a discount. I havent subscribed to a magazine in years, too hard to get rid of.

If you have any way of getting rid of plastic other than burning or burying it, thats best, but if not then add it to a hot existing fire, then it wont stink anywhere near as bad. Its those that try to burn it cold and let it sit there and smoulder that stink things up. I really wish you could find products without plastic being involved. Glass and metal are easy to recycle, but heavy to ship and thats the main reason for it.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman