Note: I wasn’t very clear in my post, I think everyone pays for garbage, but not everyone is charged based on how much garbage they throw away. Many places charge a flat fee instead of a per bag fee. Also the picture below is a stock photo, not my actual garbage. 
Today is trash day, and twice a week we drag the cans to the curb to be picked up by the city. Many times I am reminded of Amy Dacyczyn
Now I realize for those who live in the country this is probably not uncommon, but for us city folk that is amazing. A family of eight only having enough garbage to fill one bag per month, still impresses me years after I read her book. As I took out the trash last week I started thinking about how being charged for garbage would change my behavior.
I do not consider myself a wasteful person, but how much more resourceful would I be if I was charged to throw things away? How much more resourceful would you be if you paid $5 a bag for garbage? I think I would start getting very creative with how to use things I normally throw away. What about you?
This post is linking to Frugal Friday.
PLEASE share ideas on how to reduce garbage. We’re a family of 4 going on 5 and I am embarrassed by the amount of garbage we take out.
I’d love to reduce.
Where we used to live in Ohio, recycling was free and you paid for a sticker to go on each garbage bag. It really made me motivated to reduce, recycle and reuse!
Yes, we pay for trash…The current price is $3.50 per bag, but recyclables are picked up for free! Therefore, we are VERY careful to put everything that can be recycled in that bin. After a few months of this lifestyle, we are down to 1 bag of trash every 3 weeks. If we started a compost bin, we would reduce our trash and reuse even more. This week we are even discussing separating the trash into burnables and nonburnables, and taking the burnables to a place where we can burn them for free (minus cost of matches and cleaning out the ashes once or twice per year).
Erin-
i would love to share ideas on how to reduce garbage, I probably need to do a little research first since I am still learning, but I can work on a post.
Toni
We pay $17 a month for trash service. We usually have about 6 bags a day….but that is 2 kids in diapers plus 4 older kids and 2 adults. We do recycle paperboard, tin, aluminum and paper. I do not recycle plastic or glass because it isn’t offered through our trash company. I “recycle” them by reusing them though…..butter/sour cream containers, etc are my tupperware! If my trash was per bag I would be much more careful!
oooops…..six bags a week not a day!
I am sure that I would do a lot very differently. But at the moment I am just happy to get the garbage out of my house – I need to declutter.
we are getting ready to buy a house and will be moving in April. we will then have to pay for garbage service. which is $10 a trash can each time they pick it up, we signed up for the cheapest service in town, and plan on only getting trash picked up twice a month for a total of $20. but I am hoping to start composting once we get moved, and recycling gets picked up so hopefully we will be able to reduce how many times we need to get our trash picked up to maybe just once a month.
We pay $16 a month I believe for trash service. They adjust the rates according to what size trash can you require and we did go down in size last year (which unfortunately was only about a 3 dollar difference), but you have a great point. I think if I didn’t have to just pay that monthly fee and paid per bag I’d want to reduce as much as possible. We do recycle newspaper, cardboard, and glass (the services our town offers) but I want to recycle even more.
People actually get free trash pick up?!?!? I had no idea. We pay $60 every 2 months for a 64 gallon can picked up once a week, a 64 gallon mixed recycle every 2 weeks and an enormous yard waste can once a month in the “off season” and every 2 weeks during the mowing the lawn season. We can put our compostable scraps in too and the city composts for the city parks.
WOW. I wish our rates were as good as the other commenters!! The cheapest trash service around here is $25 a month. I recycle everything I can, but that doesn’t matter in price. We have to haul our own recycleables. I actually cut out our trash service, a friend of hubbys burns it for us, but I’m not crazy about the effect on the environment so I try and reduce our trash as much as possible. Hubby is now talking about getting pickup back becasue he’s tired of hauling the trash to work with him. :/
i understand about paying for each garbage bag, like amy did. but you weren’t saying that some people don’t pay at all were you? i thot everyone paid soemthing for garbage pick up. where we’ve lived its usually included in the water, sewer trash bill lumped together and the price is the same for a certain number of cans. we; have tried in the past to lower that but in city life that is hard.
my sis tried to save on garbage by taking it to the dump every few months, but boy it made their upstairs stink cuz they kept it in their garage–yuk!
We put out one “tall kitchen” bag of garbage per week. Everything else is recycled or composted. There are only 4 of us, but even when I had a home daycare business with (GRRRRR) state-mandated disposable diapers (sorry, but that’s just silly) I put out only 2 bags most weeks.
In my county we can recycle all cardboards and plastics. That is huge. Nearly all packaging is either cardboard or shrink-wrap.
Having said that, there are a lot of things people can do to reduce waste. Buying from local farmers’ markets (using baskets or cloth bags) is a great idea. Purchasing items in larger quantities sometimes means that fewer packaging materials are used. Reusing items or repurposing them cuts down on landfill use. (At my house, drinking straws are used for science experiments on a ridiculously predictable basis. All shirt/calendar cardboard is saved for craft projects.)
The most important thing you can do is become informed. Find out what you can recycle and DO IT. Then, see if neighboring jurisdictions can recycle even more. Save up those items and drop them off when it’s convenient. Use the back of printed paper (my church bulletin is full of flyers each week, with blessedly blank reverse sides).
Truthfully, I think jurisdictions should charge for grocery bags and trash collection. Statistically, it’s been proven that we value the things we pay for. Washington, DC is now charging $0.05 for every plastic and paper grocery bag. How many bags would you re-use if you saved that much per bag? (A lot. They’ve done this in Europe for years.)
As a single person I would love to pay by the bag instead of for the service. I don’t pay anything for pickup, it is included in something I pay to the city (taxes I guess??). I normally put out my can once a month when I put out my recycling, and it is only a few grocery bags of trash.
we pay a monthly trash service, but not per bag. i guess if i had to pay per bag i’d be burning a lot of paper in my backyard. we homeschoolers produce a lot of paper trash.
our trash people don’t pick up recycled stuff.
Pretty much everyone pays for trash pickup. Most people just don’t know where to look to find out where you are being billed. Rural areas usually pay by how much, but suburban areas usually pay on their tax bill ( yearly), or utility bill (monthly). My mom on Orlando pays on her taxes. She is in the city limits, not the city of. When I lived in the city limits of winter garden (lake county part) it was the same way. Now I live in the city of winter garden ( orange county side- it’s weird, our city is divided by a county line), we pay monthly on our city of winter garden utility (water) bill. If you use the trash pickup or not you have to pay for it . The same cost for everyone each month. I think the real question, is if you had a choice on paying per use, would you still throw out as much?
Where we use to live we had recycling pick up but at our new station we do not. Also, for some reason this place is not big on recycyling, I am still trying to find somewhere to bring our recycables. We have noticed the increase in our garbage due to not recycling. It is so frustrating!
I can’t imagine not being charged for garbage. I think most people in rural areas are. We are a family of 4 and use two bags of garbage a week (the small white kitchen size). First recommendation would be to recycle your glass, metal, plastic, cardboard, junkmail. Second recommendation would be to eliminate disposable plates, napkins, etc.
I live in Maine (have all my life) and in my parents city (they live right near Main st. as close to ‘center of town’ as you can get) they DO pay for trash pick up- $2 a bag. They recycle as much as the local recycling center takes (some plastics are still not available to recycle except in Southern Maine- we live in Eastern Maine) but I don’t believe it really affects their behavior (though I wish it would!). I get free trash pick up in my city but I recycle a LOT and am starting worm composting this season. We use cloth diapers and I breastfeed my babies to help reduce that packaging. When I was growing up the trash pick up was free at my parents house but they needed to make up for budget shortfalls and that $2 a bag pays the salaries of the trash workers so I understand the charge but I wish that more plastics were able to be recycled in more places
We pay $2 per bag, and we normally have three bags a month. Our recycling is free, and we recycle just about everything.
We used to only have two bags per month because we composted a ton of kitchen scraps, but I gave that up. The composter attracted rodents and a lot of bees, and it just wasn’t worth it. Then we tried indoor vermicomposting with worms in a big plastic tub, but we got so many fruit flies it was gross. We were probably just doing it all wrong, but the point is that it took time to do it right, and I didn’t have the time.
Oh, and when I did spread the compost, I got weeds everywhere!
If we had a huge backyard, or a farm, I’d compost again in an instant. But in a small yard, it just doesn’t work!
Some jurisdictions near me pick up compost, and I would love that. It makes no sense for it to go to landfill, and compost is really healthy for the soil in general. So I hope one day they put that in our little town!
Sheila from To Love, Honor and Vacuum
we pay $21 per month. we only have 1-2 bags a week for a family of 4. i couldn’t believe how much less trash i had once i switched to cloth diapers. we also recycle everything. i hope to start a compost bin this summer so we have even less!
Michelle-
How funny, I grew up in Orlando (Seminole County). I agree, we all pay for trash pick-up, but most cities charge a flat fee, so you can throw out 100 bags a month or 5 and you pay the same price. It seems rural areas charge per bag and people do a much better job of recycling and reusing when they aren’t charged a flat rate.
No- I believe everyone pays, but it is not based on consumption in many areas. And to agree with another commenter, it doesn’t seem fair that single people with one bag a month would pay the same as our family who live in the same tax district. I believe our trash is on our water bill, but maybe on the taxes, I would need to check.
Our garbage pick-up is included in our quarterly Water/Sewer bill, and I don’t even know the exact amount. We can put out as much or as little as we need to. We are EXTREMELY fortunate, that our township started Single Stream Recycling (SSR) last year, which means they guys picking up the recycling containers don’t have to manually sort anymore, they can just dump the bin in the truck and go. Now they take all plastics, cardboard, magazines, etc.. lots of stuff that we used to just throw away. We have easily reduced our weekly trash by 50%. I need to start composting to reduce it even more.
Early in our marriage we lived in an area without “free” garbage pick up. We could have paid to have our trash picked up, but instead made a few trips a week to the local dump. This was right on my husband’s way to work so it was not inconvenient. We now live in the city where we have weekly curb side garbage pickup. I do a few things to get the most our of my trash bags like tear up cereal boxes, pasta boxes, etc. into pieces so they don’t take up as much space. I’ll place smaller cans inside of larger ones and fill an empty oatmeal box with smaller pieces of trash. Just simple things that maximize space.
Southeastern MA here—and YES we pay for our garbage. The town passed it about a year and a half ago when the town was short in the budget. Of course they used the whole “we will have to take away from the kids in school if this doesn’t pass” measure. They passed it and then still raised property tax a year later still siting a shortfall.
We pay $1 for a 13 gallon trash baby and $2.50 for the 33 gallon bags. Either size you buy you have to buy in rolls on 5. Also on top of this there is a yearly fee to be part of the program (I believe it is $75). If you have large items that don’t fit in the regular trash you can bring it to the transfer station (dump) and pay to get rid of it. We got through atleast 5 of the smaller trash bags a week on top of the 5 recycling bins we fill. I would venture to guess that if we didn’t recycle everything we possible could we would have double the trash bags.
We live in a rural area too and pay about $16 a month, that is for the smallest amount of bags 1-3 a week I think. It goes up for the amount of bags you put out. We usually have only one bag per week for 5 people, I recycle EVERYTHING that I can. I have been recycling for about 12 years now and it amazes me how much would have gone in the trash. I have to haul ours, and yes sometimes it does pile up, but I can’t throw it in the trash. Funny, I looked at your pic and thought “Oh no, there’s glass, plastic, and plastic bags all in the trash” Do you recycle? If not, you could greatly reduce your trash amount. (Which I am sure you knew
)
Actually that is not my garbage, that was a stock photo.
We recycle a lot, but my kids will throw stuff in the garbage that could be recycled so I need to do a better job of teaching them.
Toni
We pay $38 every three months for garbage pickup flat rate fee. If they ever start charging by the bag we’d probably go broke! We’re a family of 8 and it’s really shameful how much garbage we throw out! We recycled cans for a while but you have to take them there yourself and they didn’t pay you enough to even cover your gas to get there—-plus you have loads of cans sitting around till you get them there. We do recycle papers—there is a school just down the street that has a huge paper recycling dumpster and you can take your papers there. The school makes a little off of it which is nice to be able to help them.
I am glad we pay by how much we put out. We are on a sticker program and it is a $1.90 per trash can and it can not exceed more than 50 pounds. We are a family of four and during the winter, we almost always only put out our trash every other week. I try to keep our waste down to one tall kitchen trash bag a week. It was extremely helpful to cloth diaper. It makes me shutter how much waste it produces. Recycling and composting also helps tremendously.
I live in a small town about 40 miles south of Boston and we do not have town trash pick up. As residents we have the option to hire a trash company or bring our trash and recyclables to the town Transfer Station for an annual fee of $40. We opted for bringing our own to the transfer station. Recyclables – newspaper, cardboard, magazines, cans, glass and recyclable plastic are all free. We have to buy special town trash bags for our trash and they cost approx. $1 bag.
We are a family of 4 and when we moved here we had 1 bag of trash per day and recyclables. Let me tell you… I really think about the things we purchase when I’m the one hauling it
I precycle – as in I don’t buy things with a bunch of plastic packaging that can’t be recycled. For example. I love the convenience of rotisserie chickens but don’t buy them anymore because the plastic container that they’re packaged in is NOT recyclable in my town.
I’m happy to say that we’re down to 1 bag of trash per week and lots of recyclables.
Honestly, I wish all places would charge per bag or pound of trash and have recycling be free (but checked sometimes so that people don’t just wrongly put things in recycling). Like, in your trash, I think I see two glass containers–that should definitely be recycling! We have 2 people and usually only make two small grocery bags of trash in a week everything else is recycling. That’s only using curbside recycling. Could be better, but could be worse. We would never buy trash size bags for two reasons–it takes too long to fill them if you’re careful and they seem to invite trash cuz there is so much room.
One thing I’ve found that encourages recycling is keeping a bag for it in the kitchen, like trash, because otherwise it can be too tempting to add it to the trash bag for convenience. We ask for paper bags sometimes (usually at places that don’t pay us to use our cloth bags), since plastic bags aren’t recyclable curbside here and then put them in the kitchen, so we have a place to put all glass, cardboard, and #1 and #2 plastics without having them pile up or having to go outside.
Sorry for the confusion, that isn’t my trash… it is a stock photo.
There are just two of us in this household, and we go through several bags of trash a week. I’d love to know how her family was able to put out only one bag!! Please share!!
I grew up in Orlando too ( Dr. Phillips). I always love reading your references to O-Town!!!
We don’t pay a per-bag trash fee around here where I live but I do know that the town over pays $2/bag for their trash and they do pose a limit on number of bags that can be collected on a weekly basis. I believe it’s 10 bags. I have heard some residents from that town complain that it is too small of a number! I am just shocked that there are people out there that take out more than 10 bags in trash every week!!
For us here, we have anywhere between 1 to 2 tall kitchen trash bags on a weekly basis. I don’t cloth-diaper my two babies (17 month old and 6 month old) so dirty diapers take a large percentage of our trash. We have a bin from RecycleBank — they do a curbside pickup in our town.. it is truly wonderful. I have seen a huge change in our household in terms of: the amount we throw away, being more eco-conscious on what we buy, trying to buy more eco-friendly packaging options, et cetera.
RecycleBank gives me 2.5 points for each pound of recycleables that are placed in the special bin. We redeem these points for great things (coupons, gift card et cetera).
Recycle helps us preserve the environment around here, it also saves my city money by lessening the landfill fees. The city also gets revenue from the sale of recyclables. Win-win situation for everyone in my humble opinion.
We live in the rural outskirts of a large city, and although our family of 4 could pay for trash service, it is something I’m not willing to commit to. The county charges us about $20 for the landfill on our annual property taxes, so we take advantage of that and use the free transfer stations that are located throughout the county. One station is very close to our home. We do have to sort all our trash and recyclables, and haul it to the transfer station ourselves about once a week. The kids love tossing aluminum cans and plastic bottles into their respective recycle bins. We feel good as a family because we’re doing something to sustain our environment, while not producing as much waste.
I went to Lyman High School – Go Greyhounds!
My husband grew up in a military family and they spent several years in Panama. I guess they weren’t allowed to go overboard on the trash. So here’s some of the things he learned.
We collapsed and rip up packaging, break down boxes, we let all the air out of soda bottles and cap them to save on space, etc. Anything to get it all to fit into the bag without having to change it out constantly. Reuse the ziploc bags unless they’ve has something like meat in them. And I save and reuse glass containers. There are 5 of us and we rarely fill up the big dumpster. We don’t recycle but at least we are taking up less space with the trash. lol
We are charged per bin. we get a 96 gallon bin that we fill up every week. Then if we have extra its $5 per bag. Keep in mind this is for 9 of us including 3 in diapers. Honestly, the need to declutter is currently superceeding my desire to be frugal, though really as long as i’m not over 96 gallons, the cost doesn’t change. I DO however consciously watch and make sure we are recycling the recyclables (which are free) so i have room to take some time and clean out the shed or kids room and have an extra bag from that.
I live in Ontario Canada. Our area, we are allowed two garbage bags a week. After that you pay 2 dollars for each extra bag. We do A LOT of recycling around here.
I usually have two to four pins of recyclable a week (paper,carboard one week, cans the next),. I also have organic bin that is out on the curb each week….
IF we did not have that, than I would have TONS of garbage bags out on the curb. So much items I purchase is wrapped to the extreme…sigh….
Very insightful
Well, I try to reduce the amount of garbage by doing these things:
- Recycle: Glass, Tin/metal, Plastic, etc.
- Composting
- Cloth diapering
- Reusable Towels, Microfiber Mops, etc.
-Reusable containers for storing foods (don’t use as many plastic baggies, etc.)
- Reusable bags for groceries, etc.
It is amazing how easily garbage can pile up..even with reducing in these ways. But, it is worth it…
Blessings,
Bella
http://lildaisies.blogspot.com
We pay $2.00 for a bag. We try to only have 1 bag a week for a family of 5, sometimes it’s 2. We do recycle so that cuts down on our waste. We are careful of what we throw into the trash.
Recently I got to thinking about all the items we buy just to throw away – paper towels, trash bags, toilet paper (that one is absolutely necessary), etc. I hate having to buy items from the store just to throw them away. We started recycling last year and it has saved me at least 4 trash bags a month. Also, I don’t spend a fortune on trash bags. I buy the cheapest ones I can find. It’s amazing how much money one can spend on trash bags. I mean, come on people, you’re throwing it away! I need to start recycling even more stuff so I can save even more trash bags. Enjoyed your post.
Keep in mind that when your trash gets picked up it might be burned anyway: I know that’s what happens to our trash, and the energy created in the burning is usable, so it’s actually more beneficial than garbage sitting in a landfill. Just a thought.
We pay $2.50 a bag. And the recyclables are free. We try and recycle all paper, plastic, glass. Here we pay a deposit on soda bottles, cans and water bottles. So we try and only put out a bag every other week.
I grew up in a rural area of Maryland and there were 7 of us (my folks and us 5 kids). When we were kids, and especially when we were teens and eating 24/7, I could swear my dad took the kitchen trash out at least once a day. That would be 30 bags of garbage a month! We were not nearly as conscious about waste as my family is today (but then again, it wasn’t something that was widely emphasized). We pay about $25/month for garbage pick-up and that includes recycling.
My trash service has different sized cans so I think if you are single or super trash reducers you can just get a smaller can and pay less.
My in-laws have to buy special garbage bags at the grocery store (in rural PA) for their trash, however, they are allowed to burn their trash as well. So, they burn as much as they can.
We pay around $20 per month for our trash pick-up regardless of how much trash we have. I used to be very mindful of it & had 7 recycle bins. But I stopped recycling altogether after neighborhood complaints about the collectors not collecting properly or at all resulted in property damage at my next door neighbors.
If I “had” to make changes I could. I still reuse whatever I can.