Anybody forced into "Mandatory Garbage Service"?

Anybody forced into "Mandatory Garbage Service"?

I am forced to have garbage service on a bare piece of land (Since upon purchased, I shot myself in the foot by signing up for a garbage service for convenience). Even if I lived on it (which I will upon building in a few years) it is still BS. I like many of you eat a lot of fruits, veggies, bulk foods, aka foods without barcodes. I also don't consume as much products in general as the typical American. Yet "they" assume I create 32 gallons worth of trash a week and don't want me to be tempted into illegal dumping, so they make trash service mandatory for everyone.

Wouldn't a better system be tax all packaged foods/items? The tax would, in theory, go towards funding a garbage company to dump all our said taxed items which make up the bulk of trash for the typical American. The more you buy, the more trash you have. Don't want to pay? Don't eat barcodes! If illegal dumping occured, the items dumped were taxed so it has already funded the cleanup.

Personally if I had it my way, I would recycle a lot of fancy fermented drinks and coconut water etc, and the other half would be dumped once a month at most at a local dump.

Healthcare was not the first "mandated service"--just the first one mandated for no other reason than being born.

I have had mandatory service several places in the past. Complete PITA--if I have to pack everything up to take it to the "curb" down a quarter mile drive, how much more work is it to drop it off on the way store?

Glad I don't have it now.

where do you live?

is the issue they wont let you cancel trash service?

I understand your frustration, but I've seen some ugly stuff from places that don't have it.

Unfortunately not everyone can be trusted to be sanitary or efficient.

Charles Tarnard wrote:I understand your frustration, but I've seen some ugly stuff from places that don't have it.

Unfortunately not everyone can be trusted to be sanitary or efficient.

But paying for a service doesn't mean they use it!

If people pay for garbage service, and they generate garbage, they'll generally utilize the service. If people have an opt out, they may not dispose of what they generate in the most responsible way (if at all). I'm only saying I've seen some things get pretty gross in the name of saving a buck.

I'm not saying it's right that responsible, efficient people should have to pay; I'm saying sometimes the best of a bunch of crappy plans is to assure that it is in people's best interest to not hoard garbage or dump illegally.

If you know of a better way that you've seen work to prevent the nasty, I would be eager to climb on board.

After living 1/4 mile south of where "mandatory garbage service" stopped, I am quite pleased to have been included when they revamped the service. No more burning, or bagging and boxing to find a place to discard it. Oh, I would have to have an unusually messy project to fill the whole container, but I don't mind that I don't have much each week for them. At least I am now included in the civilized world instead of being out where the garbage trucks are afraid to roam.

Yeah dumpers are sickening. My dad and I would dig through illegal dumping piles for mail and turn people in haha.

I guess I just have to take the cowardice route, build a house, and cash out and move to BFE lol.

My other main concern is Plac3r county CA does not allow composting toilets. As if me composting my own waste as they did the past 10000000000 years is going to effect anyone on my acre of land. I'd pay $25,000 for an outhouse permit instead of a septic if I could!

@Kyle....what's to prevent you from doing your humanure if you want? Who's going to nark on you? I kept a bucket in an apartment for ten years running, and nobody who I didn't choose to tell ever found out about it.

Haha nothing is preventing me from doing that. I will do it out of spite and to return it back to the earth. I've filled a 5 gallon bucket myself with wood pellets to cover it up. They work great and my cat now uses them!

I still have to have a septic installed if I want to build a house though. I have 3 neighbors within eyesight, with $300-500K houses... I have a feeling the only option for me is to play by the rules in the land of the fee!

Alder Burns wrote:@Kyle....what's to prevent you from doing your humanure if you want? Who's going to nark on you? I kept a bucket in an apartment for ten years running, and nobody who I didn't choose to tell ever found out about it.

You had a perfectly functioning toilet in an apartment and you used a bucket ? I've used various methods at job sites and in remote locations, but if it's right there, the toilet is going to get used. I think it's wise to not tell too many about this sort of thing. Everybody has their level of commitment I guess.

Back to garbage service: where I live it's available, not mandatory, costs $22 a month. Inevitably only the problem neighbors - usually renters - don't have it. Burning trash is legal here when burning is, but dry conditions and lots of wind make burn bans more common than not. Right now the rental house down the road has about 40 bags of trash stacked by their burn barrel. We also get a lot of roadside dumping. I do not love it when my roadkill-loving dogs start bringing home dirty "disposable" diapers...

Here in Seattle we have 3 systems. Garbage, recycle and yard waste/kitchen scraps.

Recycle is free (but only collected every other week).
Garbage and yard waste are collected each week.
For those 2, you are charged a fee, based on which size container you use.
The fee is added to your City Electric bill (whether you put a bin out or not).
So, I guess that if you went off grid, the trash would become free.

The yard waste/kitchen scraps (even allows old pizza delivery boxes) is handled by a private company.
They collect 300,000 tons from the city, and another 200,000 from surrounding communities.
It gets turned into Cedar Grove Compost which is sold at every garden center in the area.

Considering how much they charge for the compost, that collection should be free !

If you take your own trash to the landfill, they charge by weight. $30 minimum, but you would need a hell of a lot to have to pay more than the minimum. Very high tech new landfill...but they will NOT let you take stuff from there.

Here in the boonies the county has 6 "dumps " . Actually , drop points with large metal containers that are towed off and replaced when full . Household trash has to be bagged and placed in one specified container. You buy the marked bags for .75 cents each . That is your dumping fee. Another container is for paper , plastic , and aluminum recyclables . You will save money on your household trash by recycling and not placing those in your .75 cent bag . There is a large bin available for metals only , that bin is free [ for some reason , no fencing ]. The other available bin is for bulk trash - furniture , duct work , whatever - that won't fit into a .75 cent bag . The fee for bulk trash is determined by the person who works at the site . Generally $6 or so for a pick-up truck load . There are a few companies that will provide pick up service - some nationwide like WM , some homegrown - but those are not mandated . Many still burn in 50 gallon drums . Occasionally , some nefarious types will save a dollar by dumping illegally .

For the longest time I couldn't figure out how our garbage was paid after we got the service started. DH forgot to ask the county. At the end of the year I noticed our property tax bill went up. $10 a month. I'd spend more on gas going to the dump once a month. No burning here in the summer!

No recycling. DH used to haul it to SLC when we rented an apt with recycling service. He moved, we haven't figure out a new plan.

Our most regular illegal dump issue here is some individual who drinks Keystone beer and tosses the cans - everywhere. The former mayor even called out the culprit in the weekly paper. In my thinking-worst-of-humanity moments I assume he (always a he) is drinking in the truck so the wife doesn't know. There aren't too many places you can even buy beer in the county (not even the grocery store), just three or four gas stations and the state liquor store, so someone knows who's doing it. But they ain't saying cuz the cash register keeps ringing.

Charles Tarnard wrote:I understand your frustration, but I've seen some ugly stuff from places that don't have it.  

Unfortunately not everyone can be trusted to be sanitary or efficient.

This is too true.  I am disturbed by what was below the surface on land I just bought.  Needless to say there is no required trash service in this area, however one is available.

Where I live we have what the OP sort of dreamed of: that is I pay a "fee" for many things. Lubricants is one thing they love to put an extra "environmental fee" on. I put that in quotations because it goes to the Maine Dept of Environmental protection and honestly is just an illegal 2nd taxation for the same product, but we all know we cannot fight city hall. I dislike this because they just make a silly assumption that if it is bought, it eventually goes on the ground and needs to be cleaned up, and that is not the case at all. A lot of lubricants get recycled.

Overall Maine has some stellar environmental laws. When I spent considerable time in MN it took me months to get used to the idea of just dropping a soda can in the trash. Here not only soda cans are "returnable" for 5 cents, so are most bottles. We are talking everything from soda cans to individual milk bottles...who wants that crap on the side of our roads? And it is pretty simple, everyone pays the 5 or 10 cents at purchase, and so you get that back if you take it back. Want to be a jerk and just toss it out, fine you lost your money. And if you are like me and like to make money, there are return locations that pay 6 cents, so you can actually make 1 penny per bottle returned. I honestly think this should be a federal law and not a state law. When people who are impoverished are walking up and down the road picking up tossed out bottles and cans for extra money, dumping bottles and cans in the trash is down right stupid.

Domestic trash makes even more sense in my town. We are very rural, but it is very simple. I pay $1 for every bag of trash I generate. I buy "stickers" that go on the bags and the trash men take it. I can get them at the town office or at local area business like stores and whatnot. There is one slight moral issue on this though. Sometimes it is Wednesday and I am out of stickers and I live a long ways from town. I know to make the trash I have go on the truck, I can just paper clip a $1 bill to each bag and the trash man will take it. Because my brother-in-law once worked on the truck, I know they just pocket the cash and thus the town never gets the money. I know that, but don't want trash hanging around my house either! But whose fault is it...mine for causing the guys to be tempted by a few extra bucks for soda money...or is it theirs for not routing the money to the town?

As for recycling, despite my very rural area, on the first Wednesday we do not get trash pick up, but instead pick up our returnables. The paper, thin cardboard and cardboard gets shredded by a local dairy farmer who uses it for bedding. Plastics, glass and other common returnables are routed through other ways, but are taken.

As rural as we are here, I think we get a lot of trash things right.

We have no mandatory trash here, but you can (and we do) pay for a weekly collection, you can pick the size of the bag, 90L 110L or a 300L bin we pay for a 110L but rarely fill it, however I like to have the space avaliable. there is also Free recycling pick up once a month if you ring for it 10 days in advance. That will pick 8 items, either 8 bags (that they give you and are free) or 8 tires or 8 fridges etc etc. You have to tell them what it is when you call so they can send the right sized truck. We can always take recycling to the tip, and that counts pretty much everything besides used soft plastics, it's free for non commercial users. There is very little tipping here, BUT the previous owners obviously did not pay for trash, and we keep finding a couple of bags burried here there and everywhere on the land, it is extremely irritating! I went to plant a walnut tree and pulled out two black plastic bags filled with old clothes. who the £€@! buries old clothes?

Someone mentioned a deposit on bottles, 99% of cans and plastic bottles have it on here, glass oddly doesn't normally. a 1.5L soda bottle is 45c to return, a can is 15c (converted from DKK of course) You don't see many on the ground, in towns you see the drifters going round collecting them from bins.

Hi folks I have had to delete some posts as this thread has become far too political and we are outside the cider press . So we are calling a halt .
Should those with enough apples wish to restart the thread in the cider press go for it .

David with mod hat on