Trash: how's your production?

[chunksmediocrites]

This is my first poll so I may have to fix this as I go: bear with me.

For some strange reason I am curious as to how much trash per person :ff:er's produce in their households. A couple basics:

1.) Assuming the measurement to be based on a 33-gallon Roughneck trash container. That seems to be the standard in the US, and converts to approximately 125 liters; I don't know what the standard is in other countries.

2.) Divide the can by the number of people in your household. If you put out one can a week and there are four people in your household, that's the equivalent of a quarter-can a week, or one can a month per person. Make sense? I'm counting children as full measures, there is plenty of child-associated trash.

3.) I'm just talking trash-trash here, the stuff you put in a can that goes to a dump, not total trash if you have composting and yard debris and recycling.

I also know that recycling and composting- and availability of such- and other factors weigh into how much trash people produce, as well as buying habits and the like.

I am kind of interested in this in part because Qingdai figured out some time back that we could have trash pick-up once a month from our waste disposal company (still with recycling weekly and yard debris every other week). Being stupid about some things I was all amazed that was an option because I had always lived places where it was minimum one can a week, and when living with a bunch of 20-somethings back when I was a 20-something that was occasionally less than adequate. Which made me wonder if it was age, recycling kicking in heavier, composting, lifestyle, or if trash creation varied quite a bit from region to region and country to country.

So, have at it!

[freemonkey]

2 adults, 2 cats and a dog. We have a 32 gal. can picked up weekly but we don't usually fill it. We normally only have a 13 gal. kitchen bag plus some kitty litter and dog poop. It would be great to have a smaller can or have it picked up less, but sometimes we have more trash, like when I clean the garage.

Food waste goes into the yard waste can, which is picked up every other week, as are the recyclables.

[Deadlokd]

We have a 140 litre wheelie bin for trash that gets picked up weekly. Between the seven of us we fill it up weekly so 20 each per week. We also get a 240 litre recycling bin that gets picked up fortnightly. It's always overflowing by then and we're chucking the recycling in the trash bin. Pretty crap of us really. Also included in the trash bin is the food we don't eat that isn't suitable for canine consumption which is usually salads, some roast veges and the like. Vege household means no meat scraps for pets.

ETA: So, to actually answer your question two thirds of one of your trash cans per month per person. Or one sixth of a can per week.

Did we win?

[LadyShea]

We are forced to have trash pick up service BY LAW. If we are late paying or something, it is violating a state law and we get scheduled for a hearing. Srsly. I think it's because Alabamians are more likely to start their own backyard landfill and/or burn stuff that prolly shouldn't be burned. We have a big rolling can thing that is part of our "service"

Some weeks its full, some weeks nearly empty and it's almost entirely packaging of some kind or another. I have been composting my veggie and fruit scraps. We don't produce hardly any paper trash; I use cloth instead of paper towels for 99% of cleaning, we don't take a newspaper, I got us off most junk mail lists, and don't even have a printer in the house...but we still get some bills in the mail so have that.

I tend to keep cardboard and reuse it in some capacity.

[Kyuss Apollo]

We have two trash cans, with 3 adults, 4 children, 1 dog and 5 cats presently residing here producing a variety of waste that cannot be recycled or composted. We use the 13 gallon tall kitchen bags for the main trash can (which sits in the hole in the under-the-counter space that a broken compacter once occupied when we first moved in, which has since found itself recycled at the local transfer station). From that inside trash can we produce 3-6 bags of trash plus 1-2 smaller bags of kitty-litter/cat waste from downstairs, and 1-2 trash bags of diapers from the baby--she's starting to toilet train so that will be drawing down.

All that then go into the two large trash cans that go out to the curb. We recycle ALL the cardboard (has to be in paper bags or tied, then placed in the taller blue rectangular bins the town provides), plastic and glass (which goes in the shorter green rectangular bins). All the organic material 8 months of the year gets composted in a bin next to the front step for use out in the the garden, though at present it is full and not doing much breaking-down as it is 10° F most of the time--now we just toss the peels and cores &c directly onto the snow that is covering the garden. So 30-60ish gallons of trash a week, approximately with the rest recycled, methinks.

Much more complex than when I lived with just me on the farm, where everything went into the burn barrel, the cats shit outside, and gas was $1.00 a gallon.

[Watser?]

Paper (including cardboard) is picked up separately here, not even sure if the city does it or if they are a private company. It's on a different day anyway.

Glass we also keep separately, but they don't pick that up. There are special containers near most supermarkets that you throw it in.

We have separate bags for plastic, which are free. They pick those up at the same time as the rest of the trash, it's just a separate bag.

They used to pick up vegetable/fruit/garden leaves and twigs separately too, but apparently people threw so much regular trash in there that there was no point. So they stopped doing that.

So the rest of it goes in green bags that you have to buy at the supermarket but are way more expensive than regular bags because of city taxes. They only take these bags and the ones for plastic, no regular untaxed bags.

So I use about one bag every one and a half weeks I guess, which has about 50 liters in it or something? The bag for plastic usually lasts two or three weeks.

[chunksmediocrites]

In our household of three we put out one full standard trash can a month.

Here we put out glass for pick-up once a month; we can also recycle used motor oil at curbside. All the paper, tin cans, and some of the plastic go in a large rolling recycling bin together, so no sorting necessary any more. Yard debris pick-up has its own rolling cart and is picked up every two weeks; you can include just about any wood debris, maximum four inches across and 36 inches long; you can toss 2x4 scraps in there and other wood product as long as it isn't treated.

The city is in the process of determining whether they want to offer curbside composting of food waste in a separate bin, though we already compost all our food scraps that the chickens don't get, and we compost about 50% of the leaves and grass clippings. We're up to three compost bins now.

[lisarea]

3 adults, 2 dogs, 1 cat.

I was paying attention to this a while back, because I noticed that we produce much less trash than most of our neighbors do. I forgot how much I figured at the time, but we only ever put one can out, even on weeks that we have forgotten to put the trash out the previous week or two. (We old. It happens.)

We recycle, but we just drive that over to the recycling center nearby every I dunno when. (lol cause when I say "we" drive that over, I mean Matlock does.) We also compost still, despite my "I HATE GARDENING" epiphany. So now we use the fenced off ex-garden area as a place where compost lives.

We also buy a lot of things in bulk, so we don't have as much packaging there, and when we get plastic bags, we use them for things instead of throwing them away or recycling. (In fact, I get sort of mad when people bring plastic bags into the house, because I have a policy that the excess ones have to be made into permanent bags, and I get really tired of that.)

[chunksmediocrites]

when we get plastic bags, we use them for things instead of throwing them away or recycling. (In fact, I get sort of mad when people bring plastic bags into the house, because I have a policy that the excess ones have to be made into permanent bags, and I get really tired of that.)

Evil Secret Santas take note. You may want to start collecting your "present" now. Though now that I think about it, I guess they could be woven into a noose, :rubsneck: so maybe that idea goes on the nix pile.

[wildernesse]

2 adults, 2 cats here. I would say that we create about two 13 gallon bags of trash a week, most of which is food waste, cat litter, and random ticky things that we can't recycle. We also create about 2 paper grocery sacks of paper/can/plastic recycling each week, which I drive over to the recycling center about once a week.

We have valet trash service in our apartment which is mandatory, which just means that people come around and pick up our trash outside our door most days a week and put it in the dumpster-sized compactor in the parking lot. Whee. It has the ridiculous effect of making us unwilling to take the trash out to the compactor ourselves on days when they don't come by--even though the compactor is pretty much the same distance as the dumpster was from our townhouse in Raleigh where we took out our own trash, or if we have parked the car next to the compactor and are going to walk out to it anyway.

I have been halfway through making a worm bin for food scraps for the past year, so maybe I will work on that again.

[LadyShea]

Oh and we have no recycling here, unless we want to haul it to Florida. We can take aluminum to a kinda nearby place, but that's it.

[Ymir's blood]

When I'm done with a project, I usually wait till the new moon and bury it in the neighbor's garden. I noticed the FBI out there last week, so I switched to the dumpster behind the mall.

[Adam]

2 adults, 3 cats. Maybe one can per month, a little less. I don't bother to take it to the crub every week. It was less back when I was running the worm bin. I'm trying to get the SO to switch her cat to the same flushable litter I use for mine, which would cut it down further.

The ridiculous thing is that we produce probably four times as much recyclables, and the pickup company I am required by my stupid HOA to use only picks up recycling every other week. So, every other week, I haul two packed full recycling cans (same size as the standard trash) and one barely half full trash can to the curb.

[ChuckF]

2 adults. We compost and recycle. Less than a 33 gallon garbage can per person per month. We use a 13 gallon trash can in the kitchen, which is changed maybe once every 10-12 days. It gets emptied before it's full because it usually starts to smell before then. It would be changed less frequently if my roommate did not produce meat scraps. I have more or less stopped eating meat at home, and most of our garbage is plastic food packaging and paper towels from cleaning.

Of course home is not the only place I produce trash. Every damn day I either forget to take my coffee cup with me in the morning or forget to bring it back in the afternoon, so I wind up buying throwing away a paper one and feeling guilty.

[Deadlokd]

We've toyed with the idea of composting but we don't know what for. We won't use it and the food scraps will compost in the landfill anyway.

[lisarea]

Supposedly, it doesn't compost as well in a landfill (http://blog.sustainablog.org/compost-vs-landfill-does-it-really-make-a-difference/), which is the main reason we kept composting even after I stopped using it.

[ChuckF]

Also just keeps the mass out of the landfill.

[Watser?]

I don't think we have landfills in this country anymore, I guess it took up too much space in a heavily populated country. I'm not sure but I think it is all burned. In this town it is burned in a plant that creates electricity. They take out all the metal with magnets first and I think they filter out some other stuff too.

[freemonkey]

The only reasons we don't compost our food scraps in our own yard are 1) we get rats and 2) our dog tries to get them. Not such a big deal though now that our county lets you put them into the yard waste bin. I think we can even put meat and bones in that bin, but I have not because I worry that it might start to stink.

[Qingdai]

Compost doesn't usually get rats if you don't put fats in it, rats like fats. So if it was yard clippings, fruit and veg, it's pretty rat free. I also don't put grain/bread in the compost either, as it goes to the chickens. The chickens take care of the fats/meat scraps too.

I do get the occasional squirrel eating an apple, but that's about it.

[Dagon]

2 adults 3 kids and about a carrier bag a day. No idea how many of those for 125l though

[lisarea]

Compost doesn't usually get rats if you don't put fats in it, rats like fats. So if it was yard clippings, fruit and veg, it's pretty rat free. I also don't put grain/bread in the compost either, as it goes to the chickens. The chickens take care of the fats/meat scraps too.

I do get the occasional squirrel eating an apple, but that's about it.

We get angry raccoons that mess around with ours, but I'm not sure that's why they're here. I suspect they come around to pick on us, and the compost is just a bonus.

[mulebear]

The husbear and I produce about 2 trashcans a month or less. This does not include a small recycling bin for cans which we fill about every three weeks.

[Dingfod]

As evidenced by the 158 pounds of stuff I took to the shredder and a metric-buttload of stuff I took to Goodwill and the Salvation Army store, I never throw anything away.

[godfry n. glad]

Two full-time adults, one part-time adult and a cat.

We cut back to 25 gallon garbage can from the standard years ago. We also live a in test area where out garbage service has been reduced to every other week. So, in two weeks, we rarely fill the can.

Part of the program being tested is separated composting that goes into the yard debris roll cans and is picked up once a week. That's where kitchen scraps that the chickens don't eat go. (I dread the arrival of summer and the compost 'cooking' in those roll cans...the anaerobic conditions created in the provided plastic kitchen compost containter - that was to keep it until it could be taken out to the roll can - went to "FER CRIPES SAKE DON'T OPEN THAT DAMNED THING INSIDE THE HOUSE" in under a week.)

We do full service composting with the chickens and three compost towers and a funky frame.

Qingdai is correct that rats like fats (which means all kinds of meats), but they also like cereals, so things like breads, pastas, rice and the like need to be kept out of the compost, as well. The chickens consume most of the cereals and large portions of kitchen scraps...my girls are big believers in cheeses.

Because of the curbside recycling program (paper, plastic bottles, glass, steel and aluminium, and cardboard) along with the compostables now, our biggest regular disposal problem is plastic packaging (including disposable plastic film bags and rigid plastics like clamshells and margarine tubs). As much as we can keep clean of foodstuffs and other contaminants, we separate and I drop off about a 60 gallon bag worth every other month at the recycling drop-off.

[Qingdai]

You don't have to have any compost to get angry raccoons in your yard, the urban raccoon is like a poorly behaving teenager.
Jut tell them to go get a job!

They also like dog food, so they may be going after the "solid waste" generated by dogs, or perhaps that's opossums.

[Gonzo]

:bump:

Burning barrels of trash is quite popular here, but as of April 1st open burning will be outlawed throughout Michigan making us one of the last of a few states to ban the practice. At first I was all mad because people were making it out like recreational/ camp fires would be banned as well, but apparently that is not true. Essentially the law only pertains to household garbage (paper, plastic, appliances, rubber, etc.). The idea is to cut back on possible forest fires, neighbor complaints of smoke, and overall pollution and with that I am quite happy. It's about time. What I do not like is that there is no government provided trash pickup/ recycling service, but I guess it will at least be good for the garbage company. Lots of things have to change about the landfill culture in general. For one thing there is way to much packaging. For example, single serve bananas. Anway, Michiganers are all :angrynana: (especially since the public smoking ban they're all like 'WTF? Where can I put smoke anymore?') but I'm cool with it as long as I can stare into the fiery abyss of burning lumber encompassed in warmth cause recreational bon fires are also popular up in here.

[LadyShea]

Last night I cut up cardboard egg cartons and tp roll cores and am soaking them in water. I am trying to make waxless fire starters out of this paper machier instead of trashing all the cardboard.

We cannot burn trash, but we can burn brush and deadfall and leaves

[Gonzo]

I've had that on my mind a lot lately. Ways of reusing packaging and frivolous material instead of throwing it out. I'm thinking there are a lot of potential art projects that can be done with cardboard packages, magazine images, and everything else. And plastic jugs, jars, bottles, cans can be used for all sorts of stuff if they aren't recycled. The matter is just whether or not there is room to store all of that stuff, whether it can be used, and if I would actually want to dedicate anytime to figurin' out what to do with all sorts of random stuff.

[LadyShea]

I just store it in the garage until ideas come to me. I used cardboard as a weed barrier under my planter mulch, that worked pretty well (idea gotten from the racists here at :ff).

[Dingfod]

Hippie.

[LadyShea]

I'm not the one living on a farm, am I Ding? Who's the real hippie??!

[LadyShea]

paper mache firestarters fail at fire. Will have to find a new use for cardboard

[Dingfod]

I'm not the one living on a farm, am I Ding? Who's the real hippie??!I haven't worn a headband in months. Months, I tell you.