I guess you didn't read any of my post. The neighbor next door has no lawn but gardeners show up every Monday and blow dirt around. They get a few leaves from the evergreen trees unless they trim. It all goes in her compost pile.

They were issued a green bin at $50/mo which might as well be used for dog food. What the city is telling us is to not use the sink disposer for things like watermelon or other melon rinds that you would have to cut up first. Things like celery trimmings or potato peelings that have been a PITA, but make good compost. More: along with the fat you trimmed off your roast or the oil you fried your shrimp in, we are supposed to put animal bones in there as well. With or w/o meat attached. These items were problematic in the sewer pipes. No more, put all your garbage in the bin. They even tell you to line the bottom and cover your food with grass. But there are limits as to what you can line it with. Only paper. That sounds like the old garbage truck of the '50's before disposers.

But that's not the main point. There are tons of grass clippings and other yard waste and it no longer goes to the landfill, it goes to some field along with FOOD. All FOOD. The only thing you can't put in there is cactus. Dirty paper napkins and paper towels, soiled food containers as long as they are strictly paper or reconstituted cardboard like an egg carton that isn't foam. No foam in the green bin. We don't allow foam food containers in CA.

Sooooooo;

THEY ARE TELLING US TO PUT ALL MEAT, FISH, POULTRY AND VEGETABLES IN WITH THE LEAVES AND GRASS. That will stink I don't care what you say or how you handle your waste. Oh, they say to freeze your waste food until trash day (which officially starts the night before). Yeah, right. I live in a city where any Monday morning a drive by any park will find overstuffed trash cans with trash stacked up against it if the people didn't just leave it right there were they set up the grill. The seagulls love the parks Monday morning. The parks look like the stadium seating sections after a ball game.

It's already a problem in the alleys with flies and it's only going to get worse now that the city is telling us to put our food waste in a bin in the alley. Forget anyone taking to effort to freeze their food waste all week. You have to be a moron to think everyone is going to do that.

There's not a whole lot left for the actual trash bin. Diapers, dog crap, milk cartons because they are a hybrid of carboard with a waxy lining and exterior, and the stuff of household waste like anything that is dirty from a tube of lipstick to the old throw rug with the rubberized bottom. If it's not too big or heavy, stumps and wood go in the trash. When it comes to sawdust, that's hazardous waste because of plywood glue and the like. There in no place for sawdust strictly legally but it goes in the regular trash if it's bagged. Out of sight, out of scrutiny.

How about the house vacuum cleaner dust? Huh, where do you put that? It's dirt and dust so I guess that is trash too. Let's talk paper towels again. If they are from the kitchen, they go in the green bin. If they are from the garage, the go in the trash, but in reality the oily ones are hazardous waste. Don't put too many in the trash.

Oh, dried paint is OK for the trash including paint scrapings that have lead in them. Just bag them; actually double bag them. But if you have any asbestos, you better run and hide. Orange only double bagged and labeled handled only by hazmat.

Mark the date and my words: within a year or so the health dept is going to be having sihtfits. There will be so many rats and scavengers like racoons that disease is going on the rise. The coyotes will respond in kind. As Jeff said, we are going backwards.

One final statement: how many posters here have sworn off being a landlord? Glen for one, Fred for another, and many more. I live on a street with single family houses with 3-4 duplexes in my block. Across my alley is rental after rental facing the next street over, a main thoroughfare. They do all the things renters do. They could give a rat's butt about anything. The rents are high, so other than a lack of responsibility, most are pulling in high 5 figures and drive nice enough cars. For the first time in a long time there are no non running parked cars in the block long alley.

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.