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DickR · 08-30-2011, 10:30 AM

A few years ago, Burlington MA went from curbside pickup of trash every week plus curbside pickup of recyclables every other week, by manual effort, to weekly pickup of everything, with the non-recyclable trash picked up by automated truck (just the driver). The trash has to be in a 55 gallon bin with a lifting bar used by the truck. The bin is provided at no extra cost by the town; it has wheels for moving it to curbside. Anything that won't fit in the wheeled bin can be put into special bags that can be purchased at the town hall. Large objects, old appliances, etc. will be picked up at no extra cost, but the homeowner has to call the contractor to arrange the pickup, and there is a limit to how much of that can be picked up at a time.

Moultonborough has its "transfer station," where separation of recyclables is mandatory. Unless you have trash pickup by private contractor, you take your stuff there (I go perhaps every other week), put your stuff into the right bins, with supervision by the onsite staff. The recyclables make a tiny profit, some more than others, but the savings is not having to pay to have the recyclables taken away as trash. Old appliances and large things do cost something to get rid of at the transfer station, as does demo debris.

Culling the recyclables from the trash really does reduce the volume and tonnage of what has to be landfilled somewhere, at some cost per ton. It seems a shame to put an empty beverage can, essentially pure aluminum smelted out of ore at great energy cost, into household trash. The same thing goes for plastic containers. They can be reused for many things, so why not do it?

Perhaps a big trash moneysaver would be to find a way to return the tons of unwanted clothing and similar junk mail catalogs to the sender, with the sender required by law to pay for the return postage. That would shrink the volume of such junk in a hurry. It makes no sense to have that kind of volume of printed matter go from the mailbox straight to a landfill, unopened. (Ah, I'm soapboxing again)

08-30-2011, 10:30 AM	#15
DickR Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Moultonborough Posts: 751 Thanks: 4 Thanked 259 Times in 171 Posts	A few years ago, Burlington MA went from curbside pickup of trash every week plus curbside pickup of recyclables every other week, by manual effort, to weekly pickup of everything, with the non-recyclable trash picked up by automated truck (just the driver). The trash has to be in a 55 gallon bin with a lifting bar used by the truck. The bin is provided at no extra cost by the town; it has wheels for moving it to curbside. Anything that won't fit in the wheeled bin can be put into special bags that can be purchased at the town hall. Large objects, old appliances, etc. will be picked up at no extra cost, but the homeowner has to call the contractor to arrange the pickup, and there is a limit to how much of that can be picked up at a time. Moultonborough has its "transfer station," where separation of recyclables is mandatory. Unless you have trash pickup by private contractor, you take your stuff there (I go perhaps every other week), put your stuff into the right bins, with supervision by the onsite staff. The recyclables make a tiny profit, some more than others, but the savings is not having to pay to have the recyclables taken away as trash. Old appliances and large things do cost something to get rid of at the transfer station, as does demo debris. Culling the recyclables from the trash really does reduce the volume and tonnage of what has to be landfilled somewhere, at some cost per ton. It seems a shame to put an empty beverage can, essentially pure aluminum smelted out of ore at great energy cost, into household trash. The same thing goes for plastic containers. They can be reused for many things, so why not do it? Perhaps a big trash moneysaver would be to find a way to return the tons of unwanted clothing and similar junk mail catalogs to the sender, with the sender required by law to pay for the return postage. That would shrink the volume of such junk in a hurry. It makes no sense to have that kind of volume of printed matter go from the mailbox straight to a landfill, unopened. (Ah, I'm soapboxing again)