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'.

 

[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.

 

[dbdartman]

Garbage pick up is not paid for in our taxes. We have a choice: $50/year to haul to the transfer station (no limits, recycle metal, glass, paper, oil & anti freeze, plus they take brush, again no limits) twice a week (Tue & Sat), or pay a private hauler. We haul. The transfer station is only 1 mile away.

 

[LBrown59]

When my neighbor burns his garbage, the prevailing wind sends the smell to our home.
.

Oh: just suck it up and put up with it.
You said life ain't fair, Remember?!

 

[LBrown59]

WOW! TBNers like to Talk Trash.
half of a load.

In the city I paid way too much for trash pickup. It was in the water/sewer bill and I had to pay.
No cost at all.

The lady at the station recognizes me.

The station take trash, used

But people are pigs no matter ....
Later,
Dan

What a rip off :
I haven't seen anything good about forced trash service.
Any time I've come across it around here it's made matters worse not better.

 

[LBrown59]

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

1 & 2*
Why I'm against any arbitrary law that punishes / penalizes both the innocent and the guilty

 

[MikePA]

Why I'm against any arbitrary law that punishes / penalizes both the innocent and the guilty

I can hardly wait to hear how a law punishes the innocent. On second thought, nevermind.

 

[LBrown59]

If I could get a deal like this I'd jump on it.
When I was with the trash collector I was using I was paying them 256 bucks a year plus 15 dollars per large items like appliances and furniture.
I solved the 15 bucks per large item by setting them down by the road in my driveway and putting a free sigh on them

Garbage pick up is not paid for in our taxes. We have a choice: $50/year to haul to the transfer station (no limits, recycle metal, glass, paper, oil & anti freeze, plus they take brush, again no limits) twice a week (Tue & Sat), or pay a private hauler. We haul. The transfer station is only 1 mile away.

 

[ancientlake]

Where I live in rural PA, too often people move in from suburbs or cities to "get away from it all" but then object to the lack of the services they have been accustomed to. Garbage falls into this category. They want it to just "go away." They quicly begin to demand services and inevitably taxes rise, etc. etc. I'm perfectly happy with fewer services and less taxes. I recycle, and am careful about the packaging in the products I buy, and burn most of the rest. We maintain essential services such as fire and emergency on a volunteer basis. We don't need babysitting...

 

[turnkey4099]

$12 month, mandatory (I think, been paying it for 30 years), for 1 average size garbage can per week. Anything more I have to pay extra - rarely happens.

Garbage dump has high fees. Dumping my old shingles on a re-roof cost almost as much as the new shingles did.

Used to use a burn barrel for all burnables but that ended when the state started paying people to snitch off burn barrels (see below on that one!)

Now I recycle all paper, cardboard and tin cans at a drop-off in town. They don't take plastic or glass. No biggee to dop it off on one of my trips.

RE: burn barrels. They are really down on them. To the point that you cannot burn _anything_ in them. Last fall I had a batch of evergreen prunings - I could pile and burn them with no problem but "don't put 'em in a burn barrel"

Harry K

 

[hockeyhead]

In our township we have weekly trash pickup paid for by our taxes. They supply those large plastic dumpster style containers to be used with a one man garbage truck. They will pickup large items for free with a phone call and a special truck, but no tires and any fridge must be tagged that the freon has been removed and disposed of properly.
Once a year we also get to dump at the landfill for free.
They also supply recycling bins, but we don't do recyle.
We can burn year round but don't get caught generating black smoke, because first offense is $200.
The road I live on is about 1.25 miles long with 6 homes on it. At the end of the road is about .5 miles of woods on both sides of the road.
Every year 3 of us get our tractors and trucks down there to pick up the trash and junk that was dumped in the past year.
Then we divide it up between the 6 homes and we all call for a special pickup.
We've only caught one group dumping on our road in the past 9 years, they are sneaky bast$%ds

 

[txdon]

Don, when you say "recycle," do you mean other than aluminum cans? Plastic? Newspaper?

So my solution was to keep it until it dryed out and then burn it in a bonfire in my gully. I guess I could call the local volunteer fire department, but why let them have all the fun? So, this New Years Eve, I just may be havin' a small (or large) fireworks show in my gulley. Keepin' the thing around any longer is probably not the wisest thing to do. What do you think?

Jim, I'd start off burning a few in the gully to see what they do. If they just fizzled that would be good, if they take off in an unwanted direction that would not be good.

When I say recycle: at the same place we dump they have a recycle building for cans, glass, aluminum, (but I sell mine at another place), old oil, and paper. The only thing they do not take is plastic. I did find a place in Bryan but the logistics is usually not good so that is usually the bulk of my 3 bags.