We have recycling every Monday and garbage every Thursday. It takes me a couple weeks to fill up the garbage can, or longer, as I throw it in the back of my truck and throw it in the dumpster at work. Lots of car parts, fenders, big stuff go in the work dumpster as well.

I don’t think I’ve taken the recycle bin to the curb in the last three years. I’d like to get rid of it, as it takes up space in the garage.

In this neighborhood, garbage cans are to be out of sight, either in the garage, or a fenced in area.

After reading this thread I’m not going to complain about my trash company for a while….

Same here. We just put them behind the fence in the back yard on the sidewalk on the back of the garage, right next to the gate.

We have a trash compactor that was left in the garage by the previous owner. My wife's soda cans go in there, and when it is full, I take it to a fire department that is two miles away. They use the money from aluminum donations to buy stuff for the local station.

I used to take the cans to the scrap metal place. I would store the cans until I had six bales of compressed cans. I did the math, and I made just enough to buy myself a lunch after the cost of driving to the scrap yard, and standing in line amongst some spooky looking people.

Where I live garbage service is not mandatory. We have a bear that visits on garbage Tuesday and cans that neighbors put up to the main road are always raided with a mess scattered about. The bear visits my can when the smell is enticing but it’s never a huge mess. I go to the dump every other week with two cans and the charge is $8.30.

Not having meat waste or frying oils really simplifies things. We have five streams of stuff we get rid of or can't use. Most of it is taken care of by the county bi-weekly.
Compost in our green bin: this is any organic material. Sawdust(bagged in compostable bags. Food scraps, cat litter (we use sawdust litter). We don't gather leaves or clippings and a lot of peelings go into the wife's composter. Again, each compost container in the house has a compostable bag in it, so there's no odor.
Paper and cardboard. Placed in a blue bag. Since we don't buy a lot of stuff, it takes over a month to fill a medium bag.
Metal and plastics with symbols. I sometimes think if we weren't feeding two dogs and a cat there would be a lot less of this. As I is, we fill a medium blue bag for each pick up.
Garbage: this might be anything from packaging scraps to broken dishes to rags or worn out brushes and paint cans. Feed bags and baler twine land in here otherwise there's not a lot.
Refundable beverage containers.: about quarterly I will swing by the Enviro Depot (privately operated through a program with the province) . If I remember to check the "busted electronics shelf" in the shop, I will take that stuff too, ' cause that's where it goes.
Twice a year there's a major pick up with anything from toilets and water heaters to busted furniture and mattresses. I have no idea how some folks accumulate the amount of stuff they do. Maybe if they bought quality stuff, they wouldn't have to throw it away a year or so later.