# Your city's waste collection system?



## leekie008 (Oct 9, 2008)

Where i live we have 2 240L (64 Gallon) carts. 1 red lid for garbage and organics and 1 yellow for recycling.

im an environmentalist so lol 

i live in australia sydney


----------



## RawLee (Jul 9, 2007)

For reusable waste:









(cotcot.hu)

in orderaper-white glass-metal-coloured glass-plastic


----------



## qymekkam (Jul 11, 2008)

Fresno california (my hometown) is the has the oldest true landfill in america


----------



## GTR22 (Nov 14, 2007)

San Francisco










Black: Garbage
Blue: Recyclables
Green: Compost

Pretty much all homes have the black and blue, and some have the green.









Garbage Truck









Recycling Truck


----------



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

For anyone interested in waste management, the last edition of the Economist had a special report on it. Comparing waste management systems of various cities in developed and the developing world. Quite an interesting read.


----------



## diz (Nov 1, 2005)

I love the United States Waste Management System. It's awesome.


----------



## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

diz said:


> I love the United States Waste Management System. It's awesome.


Why do you think so?

The waste management system of San Francisco may be, but I am far from certain that you could apply that judgement on the entire US.

For me the quality of a waste management system is directly related to its efficiency AND sustainability (high recycling rate as long as in ecological terms beneficial, low landfill share and land fills that are cutting edge). What are your criteria?


----------



## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Here in Shrewsbury, UK, we have two large wheelie bins, one black for general trash, one green for garden waste and cardboard. We also have two boxes, one green for paper and one blue for glass and metal.

The kerbside collection is on a two week cycle, one week the black general trash bin is collected, the next week the contents of the green bin and the boxes are taken.

Plastic is not yet collected from the kerbside but people take this along to the recycling centre on the edge of town (in pic below) where you can also recycle clothes, shoes, batteries, domestic appliances, timber, paints and chemicals, jewellery, engine oil, light bulbs and some other stuff which I forget now.










I think that plastic bottles are getting added to the kerbside collection later this year.

Lots of people (me included) have a compost bin in the garden which the local authority provides on request for a nominal charge.

Non-recyclable trash gets landfilled, there are plans to build a large incinerator which will generate electricity from burning it but local NIMBYs don't want it as they say that their children will be breathing in Dioxins all day long. Incineration rates are much lower in the UK than some other European countries as the incineration plants are very unpopular for this reason.


----------



## weird (Feb 24, 2006)

In my hometown, they are underground:


----------



## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ Your hometown is...?


----------



## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

leekie008 said:


> Where i live we have 2 240L (64 Gallon) carts. 1 red lid for garbage and organics and 1 yellow for recycling.


My building has for regular garbarge, paper, electronics and a small one for chemicals..

And there's a glass one about 150m away ( on the street )


----------



## invincible (Sep 13, 2002)

In my local council:

Green wheelie bin for household waste emptied every week.
Blue wheelie bin for recycling emptied fortnightly.
Red wheelie bin for garden waste emptied fortnightly (alternating with recycling).

On request, heavy waste like old furniture or building materials can be left outside your house and picked up on request. The old arrangement was to have one week a year where this would be done but the logistics of collecting all the waste was just too difficult and by the time they changed the practice, it would take more than a month for all the garbage to be collected.

Some councils still use the open bins for recycling as described by Jonesy55 but with no sorting but that's really a sub-optimal solution as it requires someone to physically empty the bin into the truck as opposed to a wheelie bin being automatically picked up and emptied.

IIRC in New Zealand (Wellington at least), there were no bins but you had to buy special garbage bags which had a surcharge to cover the cost of garbage collection and you'd just bag up your garbage and leave it outside your house on collection day.


----------



## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ New Zealand varies by city. In Auckland there are four different cities that make up "Auckland City" and each of them have different waste disposal methods. 

*Auckland*
_North Shore City:_ Special plastic bags with a surcharge for "general rubbish" (weekly collection) and a wheelie bin for recyclable (bi-weekly though only some recyclable stuff is actually recycled, the rest goes to landfill). 

_Auckland City_: Biweekly red lid wheelie bin for general rubbish and biweekly blue lid wheelie bin for recyclable. Same deal with the North Shore that not everything is recycled.

_Manukau City_: Normal plastic bags purchased at the supermarket for rubbish which are collected weekly. Wheelie bin for recyclable rubbish collected biweekly, though again, same deal with not everything being recycled. 

Not sure about Waitakere city, someone else can look that one up.

Very little rubbish sorting or recycling occurs in NZ and nearly all rubbish ends up on the landfill.


----------



## djm19 (Jan 3, 2005)

Los Angeles has quite a similar system to San Francisco.










Black for garbage, blue for recyclables, green for yard trimmings, and theres also a brown one for horse manure (as quite a number of people in LA have horses).

You can also request for large bulky items to be picked up.


----------



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

More info : 

Waste Disposal thread
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=400636


----------



## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

djm19 said:


> Los Angeles has quite a similar system to San Francisco.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, we have the same down here in San DIego. :nuts: Well, it's California.


----------



## bosman (Mar 8, 2007)

I'm curious how areas in denser parts of cities deal with the disposal of their trash. For example, I live in an area of Boston that has rowhouses like this:










Often times there are no alleys behind these buildings, and there are apartments in the basements. There are no garbage disposal areas in the buildings either. Therefore, there is no place to keep large bins on wheels for garbage. Normally the way we dispose of the garbage is to put our trash in plastic bags on the curb before garbage pickup. For recyclables, we have small plastic bins that we can put them in, or in clear plastic bags. However, the problem occurs when the bags aren't properly secured or people looking for bottles, etc. will rip the bags open, the trash falls out and the wind blows it around. This is annoying because trash gets scattered along the sidewalk. How do other cities handle this problem?


----------



## japanese001 (Mar 17, 2007)

*ゴミ置き場をアートにするプロジェクト*　http://www.maq.co.jp/gba/





















































*ゴミは楽しく持って帰ろうよプロジェクト*


----------



## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

Even the bin bags in Japan are cute! I wonder if people feel their rubbish is more friendly because it looks like a bunny. :lol:


----------



## leekie008 (Oct 9, 2008)

bosman said:


> I'm curious how areas in denser parts of cities deal with the disposal of their trash. For example, I live in an area of Boston that has rowhouses like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



in Sydney, most apartments have garbage chutes that go to a big dumpster in the basement. But rowhouses here usually have little cans like the ones they have in NYC but your not allowed to just dump the trash on the sidewalk.


----------

