We did not sign up for garbage service so we have to deal with our trash ourselves. This is the first time we've ever been without any sort of garbage service so it is a little bit of a learning curve.
We have learned to separate cardboard, glass, tin (and aluminum) cans, magazines, plastic containers, and paper. Here in the laundry room is the bottle container, plastic bags with plastic containers and metal cans.
We've only been to the landfill once so far, which was at the end of November.
All the "recyclables" are unloaded outside the dump in marked bins, so we have learned to load the truck up accordingly. All the household trash goes in the back toward the cab.
The Christmas tree is the last to be loaded, then we tie down and go.
Here are the bins for newspapers, magazines, plastic containers, etc. 
After off-loading the recyclables we drive onto the scale to get the starting weight. Then we drive to the various "cells" to off-load miscellaneous trash like a broken Rubbermaid box, giant plastic tarp thing that covered the new guest mattress, and so on.
Final stop is the regular household trash.
The truck gets weighed on the way out and we pay our fee. So far we haven't gone over 300 pounds so our dump fee is only $10.
It amazes me how we have changed our garbage habits. I used to put a new bag in the kitchen trash at least once a day. Now that we are separating everything it's more like once every three or four days. It's not that difficult to put the different things in their place once you get used to it. The only thing we don't bring to the dump is paper trash, like paper towels, trash mail, the rolls inside the toilet paper or paper towels, etc. All that stuff is burnable so we put it in the fireplace to help start the fire. I'm not sure how that will change come summer (maybe chiminea fodder?).
The only thing I'm not doing at the moment is an indoor compost pot (coffee grounds, peels, etc.) Baby steps!
Now that I think we have the hang of it I'm going to get a place outside to store everything until we make our dump run. It is definitely worth it if we only have to go to the dump once every month or so and it's only costing us $10. I can certainly live with that.
1 comment:
Wonderful!! Plus you are doing such a service to our planet!! With only 2 people here, we have gone down to the smallest garbage can, we recycle so much now, and like you say, cheap!! Boy, if you built some outside bins, and start composting, you will only go every other month!!
Patti
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