Rural Garbage Service Mandatory ..

[Bird]

In the city I paid way too much for trash pickup. It was in the water/sewer bill and I had to pay. The garbage men where lazy and would drop trash all over the place. They never would pick up what they dropped.

The more I see in this thread, the luckier I feel that we are. Yep, I have to pay for the service whether I want to or not and whether I use it or not, but our garbage men sure don't leave you anything to complain about, including the cost.

Down in the country, yes, we had a real problem with people dumping all kinds of junk, garbage, tires, old appliances, etc. along the country road and no one to clean it up. I'm sure some would do that no matter what, but I also attributed part of it to the fact that the city charged you every time you took anything to their landfill, except on that one day a year.

Dallas, and the suburban cities, used to allow their residents to take garbage to the landfill (later to a transfer station) at no cost. But at least 25 years ago, they started charging a cash fee to dispose of anything, and the amount of garbage dumped on the roads increased, of course. And if you want to know how strict they were about charging you to dump anything . . . there were several years when part of my responsibility was the police auto pound and I occasionally had to send employees to the landfill or transfer station to dispose of trash from the pound. These were city employees, in uniform, and in a plainly marked city owned pickup truck, but I had to send the cash with them or they weren't allowed to dump anything at the city transfer station.

And even though the city had their own Sanitation Department and garbage trucks back then, instead of contracting with a private company, I contracted with a private company to provide dumpsters and pick up the garbage at the auto pound. As expected, I got a memo that some of the city council members wanted to know what I was doing contracting with a private company when the city had their own trucks. I sent back a short memo that the money came out of MY budget and the private company was cheaper than paying the other city department. I thought I'd open a can of worms and get something sensible done, but I never heard a word back.

 

[MikePA]

2. Different packaging
a. How many remember returnable milk bottles, beer bottles, soda bottles?

All of the above. I also remember home delivered milk as well as a butcher who home delivered meat. I also remember how heavy a case of 6.5 oz, glass Coke bottles in a wooden case were!​

b. Pre-packaged meats with plastic and styrofoam instead of butcher paper,

I remember my mom picking the cut of meat she wanted and the butcher wrapping it.​

c. Sugar, flour, and such in cloth sacks that were kept and used instead of paper to dispose of,

Before my time.​

d. Paper grocery sacks instead of plastic.

The paper grocery sacks always served as the kitchen trash can liner and school book covers.​

 

[LBrown59]

No burning laws are not ridiculous. My personal and political belief is that you should be able to do as you please on your property, as long as you are not bothering or harming anyone else. When my neighbor burns his garbage, the prevailing wind sends the smell to our home. It is not fair to us to have to put up with that. Sometimes he will burn in the morning when we are not home, but sometimes he forgets and burns in the early evening. There are also many harmful chemicals produced by burning plastics and other related stuff. So, not only are my family bothered by the smell, but the planet has to pay for his laziness. There are no burning laws going into effect around here and I can't wait for more. Like I said, do as you wish, as long as you are not bothering or harming anyone else.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/1296809-post32.html

 

[RobertN]

1. Things such as much bigger population; more people generating garbage,
2. Different packaging
a. How many remember returnable milk bottles, beer bottles, soda bottles?
b. Pre-packaged meats with plastic and styrofoam instead of butcher paper,
c. Sugar, flour, and such in cloth sacks that were kept and used instead of paper to dispose of,
d. Paper grocery sacks instead of plastic.

We do generate more garbage! The packaging some stuff comes in is amazing.

We "return" beer/soda cans an bottles. We get charged at the purchase time for the "California redemption value"; about 5 cents a bottle. When we recycle them, we basically get our money back. Back when soda was in bottles, it was the same way; we payed a deposit at purchase.

There are numerous local butcher shops here, that still wrap in butcher paper. Many of the grocery stores still have a butcher counter that wrap the same. There, however, many items that are prepackaged as you mention, for fast convienant shopping...

Paper flour sacks are ok; easy to recycle.

Around here, there are stores selling cloth grocery bags, encouraging shoppers to bring those reusable bags for us, instead of using the one use plastic or paper bags. We have a few of them; most of our groceries come home in our own bags..

There are a few California cities doing local legislation to ban disposable grocery bags, etc even at other stores such as hardware, Walmart Home Depot etc.

 

[RobertN]

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/1296809-post32.html

I made that initial post. I agree with most others here. I did burn a 55gallon drum of trash once. It was the smokiest, stinkiest stuff I have ever tried to burn. It is illegal to do now, but I wouldn't do it again even if it was legal.

It is nasty, stinky, bad for the air, bad for you, bad for your neighbor. It is a fire danger depending on the time of year too. Been there... responded on our engine to out of control garbage burn piles.

Note I do burn. But, it is as my county allows; smaller piles of yard debri ie branches leaves pine needles etc. No trash, no construction debri. Branches and leaves do not have that NASTY ACRID smoke that trash has.

Also, we have restricted times and dates we can burn; only in winter when there is wet conditions, low winds so the fires don't spread.

If you live 50 miles from the dump, on 200 acres where your neighbor won't smell it, and your county allows it, then it might be ok. However, this is one of those times when I like the more restrictive laws of the Peoples Socialist Republic of Kalifornia. Normally, I do not like a lot of the LA/San Francisco politics affecting rural California, but in this case it is ok with me.

 

[MikePA]

...but don't paint everything with a broad bush...

1*No burning laws are ridiculous

Talk about a broad 'bush'.

 

[LBrown59]

Some people do not understand the 'good neighbor' concept resulting in laws to control their abberrant, self centered behavior.

Works bout like gun control laws infringes on the innocent while the offenders continue on with the offenses.

 

[MikePA]

Unfortunately, burn laws seldom have an effect on changing the behavior of people who only think about themselves. They do, however, provide the necessary penalties for such miscreants who could care less about their neighbors, but will care about their own wallet.

 

[blueriver]

WOW ... its seems as though most of use agree ... Its nasty, stinky, bothersome, awfull and so on!

In my opinion, and keep in mind we all have them ... the issue of garbage is one of many ... I just want mine gone, either voluntarily or mandatory it makes me no difference, I believe its just wrong to have it in my yard, your yard, the ditches, the hollows, the roadside or simply anywhere, except an area designed to handle the waste!

Keep it coming, I love to here about different parts and what goes on!!!

 

[LBrown59]

But at least 25 years ago, they started charging a cash fee to dispose of anything, and the amount of garbage dumped on the roads increased.

One of the reasons there is an illegal dumping problem in this county.
Any time you create laws or rules that are to restrictive or are to binding or expensive to conform to you automatically create an illegal avenue to follow instead of the law.
Seems like legislators haven't figured that out yet.
They're good at blindly creating laws but not so good at seeing all the various ramification of such laws.