How intimate is your filth?

[mk]

We can recycle(community) paper, cardboard, metal, glass and partially plastic freely.
Many places collect clothes also but can't say whether it's a separate operation or not.

Our household bin is mostly for that other plastic(dirty food packages and so) that could be shredded enermously.
Now it goes(or is told to go) to burner.

Single house can put everything to burned waste but double house and up must have a compost.
With bio waste max summer time collection interval is four weeks.
We have a single house but can use neighbours compost so can have eight week intervals.
Last bill was ~14€.

Dumps take few tens for trailer loads, others go to scale.
I think it's a law now that there must be a sorting station, possibly every collector must have one also.
Also, electronics must be free, thoug no idea how it is with a truck load, shouldn't be any different.

Junkyards are a bit unknown area.
I've scrapped two cars earlier with no pay and now one for 1500€, but money is from the state.
Regulated that business also is for sure, like liquid draining and stuff.

[SkylineObsession]

We have two kerbside pickup options in my city (as well as rubbish bag collection every week for other waste), each bin gets emptied every two weeks (alternates between the two).


Rigid Plastics
Such as soft drink and water bottles, salad domes, biscuit trays, detergent bottles, squeezy bottles, fruit punnets, fruit juice bottles, household cleaners and vitamin containers.
Milk bottles, sunscreen bottles, shampoo bottles, dishwashing powder containers, liquid soap containers
Dip containers, ice cream containers tubs, margarine containers, plastic plates, cups, large yoghurt containers and cutlery.

Paper and cardboard recycling
Newspaper, letters, envelopes, magazines, receipts, egg trays, telephone books, wrapping paper, advertising material, toilet roll inners, boxes and cartons.
*These items go straight into your recycling wheelie bin.

Cans and Tins
Aluminium tins and cans, steel tins and cans, aluminium trays and foil, aerosol cans, metal pie trays, foil.
Free (paid in our rates)


Glass should be unbroken and should have been rinsed out.
Only glass bottles and jars can be accepted, not other glass products such as mirrors or sheet glass.
Free (paid in our rates)

The council is deciding whether to change the plastic rubbish bags into a wheelie bin service instead, and are also thinking about a green waste kerbside collection service (other places in NZ already do these i think).

- We've got heaps of local metal scrap dealers, and got $100 cash after dumping a whole lot of old window frames, a fireplace, old roofing iron and a few other things recently.
Free/money back.

- Clothes wise, for good/still tidy stuff we have clothing bins all over the city and they give them to charities etc.
Free.

- Batteries go to scrap metal dealers.
Free/money back.

- We no longer have recycling options for polystyrene which is immensely frustrating, as they are usually big and bulky. Have tried burning it before, but the black smoke it emits makes your house stand out a bit too much.

- But we do now (finally) have a few places to recycle soft plastics (chip/cereal/bar/lolly wrappers etc, bubble wrap, plastic shopping bags etc), but sadly it's via bins in supermarkets and other retail stores. Stupid council isn't getting onboard with a kerbside service for it, despite harping on about all the plastic that goes to the dump...
Free.

- Electrical items (TV's, computers, phones, cables etc etc) you have to pay to recycle, and because it's not cheap people just dump them in secluded places instead.
High cost.

The council could be doing a heck of a lot more to encourage recycling, but instead they keep raising the costs of taking things to the recycling centre. A trailer load of green waste for example is around $44 or so, whereas a local landowner only charges around $20-$30, so he's a very popular place to go - but apparently only has enough space for green waste for another couple of years.
http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/services/...ges-and-prices

Personally i try to recycle as much as i possibly can, and get frustrated when there are things that can't be recycled. We never throw out things with our names/address etc on them, we (either or) shred them and burn them instead.

[Tom Servo]

The council could be doing a heck of a lot more to encourage recycling, but instead they keep raising the costs of taking things to the recycling centre.

Wow, out here they pay you to bring in recycling. It's very little, and mostly transients who collect bottles and cans and bring them to recycling centers to make a couple of dollars, but weird for us to think that you'd be charged to recycle.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Actually we Americans don’t really get paid for recycling, we just get our money back by recycling...

They charge us upfront in the store, if we don’t recycle, we won’t get that money back.

Anyway, regardless, I don’t think we do a very good job of recycling... my trash collection service doesn’t even ask us to sort anything out.

When I take things to recycling centers, there are usually long lines. Scanning bottle by bottle. If you do it by weight, line will move faster, but often times still long. And I might not be able to get back full value...

When in a hurry, I some times just give my recyclables to the poorest looking guy in the line.

Point is, it’s just not very convenient. I’m just not very intimate with my filth!

[Rare White Ape]

At home, our general waste is every week, and recycling every fortnight. We don’t fill our general waste bin up fast enough, so we put the, both out on recycling week and that’s it.

At work it’s a little more involved. My job is warehousing in furniture and electrical retail. We have two dumpsters and a cardboard bin. Our delivery drivers would come back and unload all the empty cartons and packaging from the previous day’s deliveries. The cardboard is emptied twice a week, while the dumpsters were every second day.

That was it until 2014, when the company decided to overhaul its national waste program and do more recycling. Now we split the soft plastics (polypropylene and it’s ilk) and put it all in a bigger bag, which goes into the cardboard bin to be collected alongside that. The biggest volume was the styrene foam packaging. It’s light but takes up a lot of space, and we’d be getting at least two full fridge boxes worth of the stuff brought back every day. Now that goes into its own bags, which are collected and sent for recycling. It’s so much better now, and our dumpsters get picked up twice a week, essentially halving their frequency, but massively reducing the volume of landfill we produce.

[CudaMan]

My city has been one of the leaders in recycling programs since I've been an adult. I can barely remember a time when we didn't. It started with a small open bin for recyclables that you placed curbside every week, and quickly evolved into a large closed-lid bin. Been that way for many moons. The city provides three different wheeled trash bins for every resident: gray for general waste, green for yard waste, blue for recyclables (glass, paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, etc). It gets picked up weekly and sent to a sorting center. I suppose we do have to pay given trash pick-up is part of the utility bill.

For e-waste there are local centers who will take your stuff off your hands for free (and make money off recycling it). Car batteries must go to the parts store. For big items that won't fit into the bins, twice a year the city has an "operation cleanup" where for 1 week leading up to the special pick up day you're allowed to set these items on the street by the curb. Furniture, large branches, fence posts, old washer/dryer, broken lawnmower, etc. Scavengers know the drill and roam the streets for treasures. Half the time you can put out something you're not allowed to and a scavenger will pick it up before the city gets to it.

Did I mention my city also takes used oil/filters curbside and provides empty containers for it in exchange? Hooray for not having to risk an oil spill in my hatch while making an extra trip!

Fresno is the butt of a lot of jokes but we get some stuff right!

[SkylineObsession]

Wow, out here they pay you to bring in recycling. It's very little, and mostly transients who collect bottles and cans and bring them to recycling centers to make a couple of dollars, but weird for us to think that you'd be charged to recycle.

I should have elaborated a little, you don't get charged for recycling normal things like cardboard, tins, paper, glass jars, clothing etc. It's the electronics, oil, tyres, TV's etc you have to pay to dispose of legally.
Actual dump charges keep raising, as do green waste charges.

[Rare White Ape]

I’m of the opinion that you should never have to pay to get your things recycled. Charging for it is insane, and it just hinders the recycling process and leads to the environment being worse off.

To that end, virtually anything I want to recycle is handled by the city council, or I can get it done at work. Yes it’s paid for through rates like any other service the council provides. But I’m firmly of the view that nobody (and that does include myself, let’s not kid anyone here) is going to take the initiative to do anything good for the environment if it takes more effort than their old crappy habits, people have to be forced to do it, or it has to be provided to them on a platter. Same goes for industrial waste, where company profit takes precedence over the planet. This is why we have organisations like the EPA etc in different regions of the globe.

[mk]

Property cleanup days are here also, but they are(or I am) poorly informed and I usually miss them.
It's really not a problem as we are a small community and everything is close.

Back in time our electronics were not free also.
Our forest ownage is quite fragmented, means also that we have quite many forest roads.
(one reason our forest fires are easier to handle than Swedes')
And so, of course, some of those roads near here started to look like a second hand stores for kitchen whites.
And, of course, owner cleans, so one case I know a forest company decided to excavate some road away, not the only case for sure.

It's also generally so that if you sell a new one you are oblicated to handle the old one, like tyres, electronics, batteries and so.
Drinks have usually pawns and so bottles and cans go back to the shop.
I think furniture is an exception but if they bring the new one they usually take the old one also, possibly with a small fee.

Our system, after household bin, is generally DIY based.

https://www.google.fi/search?q=rinki...&tbm=isch&sa=X
https://www.google.fi/search?q=sortt...&tbm=isch&sa=X

Being EU's model pupil is not always very cheap eighter.
(those above systems are quite new and partly second rounds already)
Like those sorting stations, public is fine but privates are possibly added after every county's collection rights bidding round.
Luckily at least drivers of lost bidder must be recruited first.

Totally private and out of bidding system are scrap metal firms.
One local has a sorting area and accept practically everything, pays also if you have enough of it, if memory serves for iron it's two metric tonnes.
Nowadays they are questioning your sources also, somebody sold a mile of stolen railroad tracks once, got conviction but tracks were melted and were from a museum railroad that if memory serves was oblicated to be there by Paris peace treaty.

Styrox and other foam packages are worst here also.
Luckily they are fading.
Also, a local paper company have recently done plastic free disposable paper cups, meat cases and so on.
https://materialdistrict.com/article...ng-recyclable/

[retsmah]

I haven't been on here in a while, I saw this thread and thought it was about porn. I am disappointed.