Garbage

[Frank Cox]

Continued from here: http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f5/t003249.html

The final format for garbage here now is that residential gets two bins each, one for garbage and one for recycling, and the bin contents will be collected on alternating Mondays. (Garbage one week, recycling the following week.)

For commercial (like me) they have brought big dumpsters, blue for recycling and brown for garbage, and put two or three of each along the alleys throughout the downtown area. So everyone along the block is supposed to share these dumpsters and I'm not entirely sure of how often they will be removing the contents.

I suspect that all kinds of people will be bringing trash from all over to put into these dumpsters instead of just the businesses on that particular street, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully there won't be too many deer carcasses and dead rats dumped near here....

[Mike Blakesley]

Small towns get a lot of crap (especially during election years) for being backwards hick-villes filled with conservatives, but I'm sure glad to live in one when it comes to discussions like this. Our trash system has been unchanged for about 20 years now -- the business district gets 2 pickups a week (or if you are doing a huge trashy project like a house remodel, you can request a big dumpster and pay to have it hauled off). The residential areas get one pickup a week. All of the trash goes into the same can.

[Martin McCaffery]

We have great trash service in Montgomery, it's really overkill for me. Home pickup twice a week, all trash in the same city supplied can (it supposedly gets recycled, but you know how that goes). Also, free curbside pickup of tree limbs and other plant refuse. I'm not sure how many days a week for the business pickup, three at least. Covers more than I need.

[Frank Cox]

For as long as I've lived in Melville (and I assume before that) the garbage service has always been the same. Once a week (Mondays for me) the garbage truck comes by and takes what you put out for them to pick up, and that's really all there is to it.

Now that they have switched to this new system three people in town have lost their job. (Driver and two loaders.) Now it's just one guy who never gets out of the truck and I think he comes here from Yorkton because it's a Yorkton outfit that has a long-term contract to do this.

The objective is supposed to be to reduce the amount of garbage that ends up at the dump and also to reduce costs since this method is supposedly $2 per location per week cheaper than the previous method with the three guys and the truck.

Since they brought the dumpsters today I spent part of the afternoon tearing my garbage stand apart (and putting it into one of the dumpsters). It was getting kind of rotted out; I did a patching up job on it last yer but if they hadn't started this new scheme I would have had to build another one next year anyway. So I guess it saves me having to build a new garbage stand.

I can't say if this new procedure is a bad thing or a good thing yet since it's just starting. On the one hand, it'll be convenient to just drag garbage over to the dumpster as it accumulates; to this point I've had to store it in my garage between pick-ups so the ravens won't get into it. On the other hand, I don't know how well this shared dumpster plan is going to work out -- if it was just the businesses on this block using them then it shouldn't be a problem but I can easily see people bringing their "extra trash" over here to put into these dumpsters. After all, who's going to tell them not to? And on the third hand, it's a shame that three local guys are now out of work since jobs in Melville don't exactly grow on trees, particularly manual labour type jobs.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Hello Frank,
It is possible to limit access to the dumpster by placing a lock on the lid.
It otherwise can become the "community trash dumpster".

[Mike Blakesley]

We do get the problem of the community trash can. At my day job, our can is in the back of our parking lot and when I go to empty trash, invariably there is a bag or two in there from the "neighborhood." It never gets overloaded though so I choose not to worry about it. Pick your battles, as they say.

[Randy Stankey]

If people overload the community dumpster then somebody in government will have to be held responsible. Won't they?

Sometimes things have to fail before people get forced to be responsible for their bad decisions.

[Gordon McLeod]

In Toronto we have 3 bin black for garbage blue for recycle green for organics
theblack blue get picked up alternating weeks and green every week

[Van Dalton]

We do get the problem of the community trash can. At my day job, our can is in the back of our parking lot and when I go to empty trash, invariably there is a bag or two in there from the "neighborhood." It never gets overloaded though so I choose not to worry about it. Pick your battles, as they say.

We have an arrangement like that at my store. There are three large dumpsters behind a gate whose lock hasn't worked in like 20 years. The manager usually turns blind eyes to it being the community dumping site (and I've even been known to use it from time to time, especially after Christmas or garage sort-outs).

Trouble is, Oregon increased its bottle refund to $0.10 a couple of years ago so they attract the career scrounges like rats. Again, manager doesn't give half an S, despite customers frequently complaining, and the sight of these societal unmentionables makes the place look like a ghetto slum. Manager won't install security because "it costs money", even when I've offered to cover the cost of it out of pocket. It's a battle I've been fighting for eight years..... never winning once.

On the other hand, the store has a detached car wash facility and people are constantly cleaning rubbish out of their vehicles. Better they dump it in the bins than leaving it lay around the facility, which they do anyways, but not to as great an extent than if the bins weren't so easily accessible to customers.

[Bobby Henderson]

Damn. I was hoping this was a discussion thread about the band Garbage.

[Marcel Birgelen]

We can still hijack the thread and make it one.
I've actually seen them live once... in 1998...

Regarding the "real garbage": We're at four trashcans right now:

- One for organic stuff
- One for all kinds of recyclables but never the ones you think you should put in there
- One for soft plastics (which often leads to the discussion what kind of plastic qualifies)
- One for all the rest

Ah, and then there is there is a separate pile for all the used paper and carton...

Our garbage is stored in a shed with a lock on it. Since you pay for some of it by the kilo, it's better to avoid stray dumpings into your cans or containers.

[Barry Floyd]

Being a commercial business, I have to pay for my own dumpster service. It ain't cheap, but doesn't break the bank either. Our dumpster is emptied on Monday nights around 3am. Once last summer on a Friday night, we get to the drive-in at 5:30 p.m. and find the dumpster full to the top. We first thought the trash truck guys forgot to empty the dumpster, but upon closer inspection of the contents of the dumpster, we realized none of the stuff in the dumpster was ours. I started pulling out the bags of trash and started going through them hunting for "addressed mail". After we found several bags all with the same mailing address in the trash, we proceeded to empty the entire contents of an 8 yard dumpster into the bed of my truck and one of my employees trucks. He and I drove into town to the address that was found in the bags and backed our trucks up into the front yard. We both got out of our trucks and "delivered" their trash back to them. Left a pile about 6-8 feet tall x 15-20 feet long in their front yard. They never came out of the house to stop us, but they did watch us from the front window. Never had a problem since.

[Martin McCaffery]

Were you wearing your Officer Obie uniform when you did this?

[Justin d'Entremont]

The city here doesn't pickup trash from commercial businesses. Most places here will rent a dumpster from one of the local civil contractors for a couple hundred dollars a month, who will also haul it away for a fee. We have a 10x10 shed behind the building which our trash goes into. We own a dump truck (from one of our other businesses), and when the shed is full, we come down with the dump truck and haul it to the dump across town. They charge a $5 tipping fee as long as your load is under 500lbs or something like that, then there's a per lb charge added on too.

[Frank Cox]

After having these dumpsters for almost a year with no issues, yesterday my wife looked out the window and saw a guy drive up and start unloading a pile of stuff from his truck. She went out and asked him just exactly what he thinks he's doing. He said, "Why pay $20 at the dump when I can just leave it here?" Then he gave her the big fuck-you and drove off, leaving most of his garbage here.



When the dumpsters were brought out they said that they will provide a lock for anyone who wants one. I didn't think that I wanted one since who wants the hassle of having to fetch a key anytime you want to put some garbage out.

I just filled out the form saying that I want a lock installed.

Sheesh. First it's graffiti on the wall and now I have to lock up the garbage.

Hopefully nobody shows up with a deer carcass or something before they get here with the lock.