Current Mood: Cool

My husband is from San Francisco Bay area, where they have enforced recycling. The trash collectors will sift through the garbage on occasion, and if there are any recyclables in it the home owner will get fined. Pretty extreme, but it works. On the opposite end of the spectrum, my friend who runs a day care, thus produces a lot of little glass jars and such, lives in an area that charges extra to pick up recyclables. Yes, the city (Kirkwood, MO) makes the homeowners pay MORE to take away recycling. Now I’m not 100% sure on how all that works, but I know that schools have recycling dumpsters for people to dump into to help the school earn money, I know that you can take recyclables to get money… Having to pay is a total rip-off.

So while these two places are on opposite ends of the trash spectrum, I think that my city has figured it out a balance beautifully. The plan is simple: Recyclable pickup is 100% free, as much as you have to put out. Trash pickup is paid for by trash tags that you buy and place on the garbage can instead of paying a monthly trash bill. We don’t use a lot of non-recyclable packaging, so our recycling bin going out once a week generally suffices for our garbage pickup. We generate a bag of garbage about every week to week and a half, our trash can holds three bags. Thus a can of trash is going to the curb about once every three to four weeks. So a sheet of five stickers, which costs $13.55, can last us three months or longer. That makes our garbage collection bill about four dollars a month. It makes our solid waste environmental impact pretty low for a family of three. And this happens without very much thought at all on our part. It’s not like I stress out over whether something should go into the trash can versus the recycle bin, and I don’t consciously seek out any particular packaging type.

I’m not bothering to tell you about this just because I want to brag about our lowered environmental impact or what a cool town I live in. This trash pickup scheme didn’t just magically happen. It was decided and voted upon by city council. City council members are elected, as is the mayor. These people work for you, so why not contact your local city council and take action? Wouldn’t you like to reduce your monthly bills and your environmental impact?

The info from our town’s website (I’d offer a link directly to it, but it’s in nasty frames):

Swansea’s Solid Waste Management Program includes the collection and processing of trash, yard waste and recyclable materials. (Click on the below items for complete information on the program and scheduled pickup days). For trash and yard waste collections, you must use a container no larger than 33 gallons and weighing no more than 50 pounds, or a bag weighing no more than 50 pounds [the tags say specifically: No more than one person can lift on their own], or rent a 90 gallon rolling cart (toter) from Allied Waste.

No matter which disposal method you use, you must place one (1) Swansea trash or yard waste sticker on the 33 gallon container or bag. The 90 gallon rolling cart requires 2 stickers. Trash or Yard Waste Stickers are available for purchase at a cost of $13.55 per sheet (each sheet contains 5 stickers) or a yearly sticker is available (with the cost decreasing weekly). Contact the Government Center for current price or to purchase. The yearly sticker is good for one 33 gallon container, weighing not more than 50 pounds.

Pretty simple, eh? There are rules for larger items too, and it’s all explained on the back of the sheet of tags. Yard waste tags are separate. They even give us groovy recycle bins to use.