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Post by Script on Apr 11, 2010 14:23:47 GMT -5
My mom gives me her food waste for my composter, and extra plastic bags. I chuckle at leaving her house with garbage. while i'm ranting, i might as well spew all my garbage woes at once....ha ha..... my ex-brother-in-law lives on the west coast, and my brother and i take care of his swanky very $$$$ condo townhouse here. we hire cleaning and maintenance people; etc, plus do all the banking and financial stuff. the townhouse is brand-new. 5000 square feet? grand and luxurious. BIL is here about 1 week a month. there was evidently an oversight by the builders AND/or the city when the place was built. there was no water meter installed. WELL! BIL's purchase of the townhouse coincided with the introduction by the city of the new stricter garbage/recycling rules. YOU HAVE TO USE A CITY-ISSUED BIN. You are charged for it on.....the water bill..... WELL! my brother and i, and most of the city staff, did NOT understand this. we called and called begging for help to get bins. sometimes we would spend 45 minutes 'on hold'. we took turns calling and/or holding. sometimes we sent e-mails. we had a whole file on 'getting BIL garbage service'. We are talking about a multi-million-dollar property here....... for about 1.5 years, while BIL had no garbage service, we took his garbage and recycling to our various homes. finally, someone told us that our problem was the lack of water meter. we finally got the city to install one; then they delivered the bins. we still take some of the recycling to our homes, as it is not safe to leave the bins outside overnight [huge vandalism issues in this ultra-deluxe area].
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Post by yearning4order on Apr 11, 2010 14:43:53 GMT -5
Script, I have to confess this sounds very challenging. Is there any way at all to give yourself amnesty or does it translate into other woes?
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Post by Script on Apr 11, 2010 17:36:50 GMT -5
Script, I have to confess this sounds very challenging. Is there any way at all to give yourself amnesty or does it translate into other woes? thank you for your concern. the BIGGEST ISSUE is the limited amount of true TRASH we are allowed to put out for collection. When the strict programme started, each household had to specify a Bin Size and then we are charged [on the water bill] accordingly for small, medium, large. Most of us have 'medium'. If we have MORE TRASH than will fit in the bin, we are allowed a few overlimit bags per year. We get tags for the overlimit bags; these are not transferrable and cannot be carried over to the next year. If we use up the tags, we have to buy more, at designated places. They are expensive too. The ONLY WAY anyone can survive is to recycle as much as is humanly possible: there are no limits to the amount of recycling we can put out. And to keep a GARBAGE FILE, with the pick-up days, overlimit tags, and other info. This is not trivial. To go to the few 'transfer stations' [city speak for dump] is a NIGHTMARE. We used to bring old car oil to recycle: it was an errand of about 1.5 hours. I confess that I laugh myself silly when I read here about people being embarrassed to put garbage in their apt. bins or down their trash shutes. Everyone here occasionally has to chase the garbage truck down the street: in nightgowns or pjs's: just to stay ahead of the game. And oh yeah, my DH, along with others, bribes our garbage guys regularly: with cookies, water, soft drinks, xmas gifts, whatever. the one area where I have granted myself amnesty: i no longer bring any charity items anywhere (goodwill, st vincent, my church). i wait until some charity CALLS ME: then i put the stuff out. edited to add: *another major area of amnesty: I no longer go to the City Enviro Day drop-offs. I give my stuff to my brother and PAY HIM to go for me [eg: to drop off computer things, dead cell phones, old paint] also: I no longer even TRY to use enviro-friendly cleaning things. I tried this for a l-o-n-g time, and it was a failure for me. The most I will now do is the 'vinegar-baking soda-boiling water' routine for slow-moving kitchen sink. confession time: I feel guilty about a vast number of enviro-issues; this is one of my unhealthy obsessions. It is hard for me to enjoy spring now [season creep, global warming]. I went through a period of immense guilt knowing that friends of mine had embarked on a life-long-NO GARBAGE endeavour. If I can at least recycle as much as I can, the guilt is somewhat mitigated.
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Post by Meme on Apr 11, 2010 21:34:33 GMT -5
we have had those basic rules here for a while now and I am used to them-- I try to save my foot prints when I can--some are a pain but some how they end up being nomral living after some time--hang in- hugs Meme I have notived how much more careful folks are if they are paying a price if not careful--folks who have the power included in their rent often don't care to save- and|or paying a basic set amount is the same attitide--- the city south of us used to charge every household a set rate but changed the rate to pay to what comsummers use and discoverd power useage went down by nearly 24 percent even with new areas being built in the city- just a Meme thought
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Post by bigtimetroubles on Apr 11, 2010 21:55:03 GMT -5
you must live in California....what a state that is....hugs btt
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Post by CaringFriend on Apr 11, 2010 22:58:26 GMT -5
Script, very good solutions. But it is aggravating to finally get into a routine that works, only to have it undone by someone in authority. (I LOVE this little guy!)
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Post by eagle on Apr 11, 2010 23:22:00 GMT -5
BTT, I lived in California most of my life. There were no cities and as far as I know, still no cities that have the kinds of things Script is dealing with, particularly regarding the wine bottles and beer cans.
Many of my family are still there, and I have not learned of new and radical changes since I moved 5 years ago.
In fact, I was very disappointed when moving to the midwest and finding that recycling requirements here were so very lax. In California my recycle can was larger than my garbage can. The yard waste can was also larger than the garbage can. Yes, we had 3 cans. The recyling was mixed - everything into the same can, no separation. Not all communities in California have the same set-up, as it depends on if you live in the city or rural communities, the need for the yard waste cans. And also if in a single family home vs. multi-unit complexes. We last lived in the mountains in a single family home and had about the same amount of yard waste there as we do here.
Here we have a very small recycle bin, about the size of large banker box. And there are no yard waste cans in this town. We have to pay for large brown paper bags to put the yard waste into and we also have to pay for them to pick them up. In California, our yard waste pick-up was free.
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Post by howardsgirlfriend on Apr 12, 2010 11:12:08 GMT -5
Bummer. I love my yard debris can the most. It's so big that I could climb inside it. Weekly pickup. Neighbors who occasionally allow me to fill their cans, too.
I do wish those paper bags were twice as wide, and half as long.
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