Talk Trash With Your Local Government

Our city provides curbside recycling. They even provide the collection bin. All scrap paper, plastic bottles, aluminum cans and glass goes in. On trash day we simply take our bin to the curb and set it beside our trashcan. What services does your community offer?

Look up your main city or county telephone number and write it down in your address book or store it on your phone (this will come in handy more often than you think). Give them a call and ask for the solid waste department. While you have them on the phone, there are several things to ask about trash services.

Call to see if your community provides curbside service and if they provide the bins. You will need to pick one up if they do, so find out where you need to go to get it.
If your city does not provide these curbside collection services, find out where the recycling centers are located. Even communities that do not provide curbside services have made these centralized stations available for PR reasons if nothing else. Chances are you will find one that is on your way to or from work, near a local grocery store, or somewhere convenient to places that you are already going.
Find out when or if your county provides annual/semiannual hazardous waste collection for all of those paint cans, household cleaners, and garden chemicals etc. you have taking up space and when that collection occurs. Write the dates or approximate dates into your calendar. Our community has one every spring and every fall, but the dates are not set. I have it written down on my calendar to begin calling for specific dates on September 1st and on March 1st.
Find out where the local trash dump or big item collection centers are located and what items are allowable.
Find out if your community provides scrub services. Our community provides curbside brush pickup. The brush is mulched and used for landscaping all over town. Just after Christmas they do a “chipping of the green” where you bring any live but dying greenery to be mulched and you can choose to keep the mulch for your own flower beds if you want.
Find out about all of the other services and events that your community provides for waste services. You may be surprised what you may find useful or beneficial to you later.
Find out if there are any fees. Most services are all covered by the monthly solid waste fees already included in your utility bills, but ask to be sure.
Your city will usually have pamphlets for the services they provide. These will give you all of the details of the programs including what specific items can and can not be included. Ask if the pamphlets are available on the internet or if they can mail them to you.

Self Service Recycling

If your community does not provide this service, go to a local discount store to get yourself a large storage container or a large laundry basket that you dedicate as a recycling bin. Then schedule on your calendar one day each week when you can visit your recycling center. This will be worth it. It will reduce your messy trash amounts a lot and you will spend less time cleaning up those leak trails that occur when taking out the trash.

Campaign for Curbside Services

Take a minute to e-mail all of your community leaders suggesting that a curbside service is implemented. Most will have their contact information available on the offical community website. Before sending the e-mail, save it and you can send it every now and again without taking more than a few seconds. Schedule a day in your calendar every couple of weeks to resend the e-mail. Persistence pays off. I would be very surprised if someone didn’t take up the challenge either for genuine interest or for political gain.

One More Thing

Make sure to rinse out items when needed to keep odors down and critters from being attracted. Collapse cereal and cracker type boxes, cans and even plastic bottles before tossing in and you may even be able to set drop off day to every two weeks or longer.