The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: Syonyk on May 11, 2018, 11:39:37 PM
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Last year, I did some math on our trash service and realized we were paying $222/yr for trash service - which wasn't very good service, in that I had to haul a can uphill 1/8 mile each week to have them, maybe, come pick it up. Pickup wasn't terribly reliable for some reason, and hauling a heavy can, with small wheels, up a good gravel driveway slope just wasn't fun.
So I built a trash trailer. https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2017/10/building-trash-hauler-from-old-parts.html It's a 1964 pickup bed trailer with a 1973 topper on it, free from a relative who lives nearby - he wasn't using them, and I had a use. About $200 in tires, plywood, and urethane to protect things, plus some bolts and a can of foam.
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GGVUoUApQEQ/Weu8dLUei8I/AAAAAAAAkQ4/uESpTGfLR_cSWvBEgXv8K4nPM04E0CpDgCLcBGAs/s800/IMG_4731.jpg)
This has been working wonderfully. I hauled the first load after 3 months, not because the trailer was full, but because I had some other stuff to haul (banquet trash, which... I'm not sure why I volunteered for that, but I had a trashed couch to haul too).
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0em_VSV8pX0/Wn-CHG61g9I/AAAAAAAAnig/gVRmfGqyHyYk9vw3kYVq3oIlZ2T93NmxwCLcBGAs/s800/IMG_5346.jpg)
Current trends are that we have to haul trash about once every 4 months, plus or minus a bit (I may be able to stretch it to 6 months, but it's likely in the 3-5 range most of the time). Hauling trash to the dump is a 26 mile round trip, or about 2 gallons of diesel. Since the weight of a full load is under the minimum (annoyingly), it's $5 to unload, plus the fuel for the round trip (about $7.50), and a tiny bit of truck maintenance (mostly time based, since I don't drive it much). Or, for three trips, $37.50/yr.
It's more convenient than hauling trash every week, we buffer our trash, and I've diverted a lot out of our waste stream already. I'm looking into compressing the stuff more before tossing it in the trailer to extend the trip time out, but this project, so far, is a big win! Saving $180/yr, and having a better quality of life in the process!
#RuralLife ;)
// EDIT: See most recent posts, but I'm now net negative on cost for trash annually. I've found various places that pay for my recycling, which reduces trash volume significantly. https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/on-track-for-a-$40yr-garbage-'bill'/msg2375655/#msg2375655
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Haha! I love it! We live on 4.5 acres and I could see my husband totally doing this to save money! My sister-in-law lives on 3.5 acres next door and she pays us 1/2 of the trash bill and puts her small amount of trash with ours, so we only pay 1/2 for the garbage bill. Been doing that for 20 years! At our cottage, we don't have trash service because we haul it home with us. Now if I could just lower our sewer bill at our cottage. We have a well, but they put in sewers a few years ago and everyone is charged the same amount no matter how much you do or don't use it!
Miss Prim
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Haha! I love it! We live on 4.5 acres and I could see my husband totally doing this to save money!
It's not a huge savings, but it's a very real quality of life improvement compared to hauling a big garbage can with tiny wheels up a 1/8 mile hill of road mix every week! And then hauling it back down. Actually, I usually just left it at the top until I had my truck, and then tossed it in the back... or hooked it on the hitch. There's a bit of an art to getting down the driveway with a garbage can hanging loosely on the hitch, but I'd gotten decent at it.
This is also a very real way to keep an eye on our trash production. I see it when I'm tossing trash in, and see it when I'm pulling it out. Some of it is reasonable, some of it... eh.
I've been diverting cardboard out for use in sheet mulching and other garden-ish projects, and that's helped a lot. An awful lot of our trash volume was cardboard, but it's building in one of our sheds now (flattened).
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very useful solution.
How does it work in the summer when you've got a bunch of trash-bags baking in a tin can for several weeks? Does the trash ever turn into rotting goop?
Also - trailer registration costs?
Also also - why are those PVs in hte photo not out harvesting electricity for your office-shed?
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I'd worry about critters getting into a trash pile, but that's just me. Great job saving a few bucks though!
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Waste bills are the worst! I would probably have figured out a way to install a composting toilet (from either ACS (http://www.compostingtoilet.com/) or Clivus Multrum (http://www.clivusmultrum.com/)) and grey water system rather than repairing the sewer line if there were a way to opt out of the sewer bill (my state requires grey water systems have the option to switch to sewer and prohibits kitchen sinks on grey water systems). My trash pickup is the smallest service allowed and is regularly less than 25% full on pick-up day. Combined these bills are over $160 every other month (about 75% wastewater/25% solid waste).
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Current trends are that we have to haul trash about once every 4 months, plus or minus a bit (I may be able to stretch it to 6 months, but it's likely in the 3-5 range most of the time). Hauling trash to the dump is a 26 mile round trip, or about 2 gallons of diesel. Since the weight of a full load is under the minimum (annoyingly), it's $5 to unload, plus the fuel for the round trip (about $7.50), and a tiny bit of truck maintenance (mostly time based, since I don't drive it much). Or, for three trips, $37.50/yr.
It's more convenient than hauling trash every week, we buffer our trash, and I've diverted a lot out of our waste stream already. I'm looking into compressing the stuff more before tossing it in the trailer to extend the trip time out, but this project, so far, is a big win! Saving $180/yr, and having a better quality of life in the process!
#RuralLife ;)
Hopefully you aren't forgetting:
* registration fees for the trailer
* inevitable pest infestations/cleanup time & cost and health hazard
* protection for the tires and/or frequent replacement (UV, dry rot/etc.)
* the inevitability of having a major problem with the trailer that is that old and likely not well maintained (rusted out lugs, seized bearings, rusted out bed bolts, rusted out suspension components, etc.)
* having a rotting, stinking pile of trash on your property for months at a time ;)
Glad you have a quality of life improvement, but I would have just held the trash company to account and made it easier to haul the 1/8 mile (say a home made hitch mounted platform). I'd rather do that than deal with the problems above =) Sadly, it would cost about $25 to unload a trailer like that where we live so it wouldn't even be a cost savings (though oddly, if it were a truck bed still attached to the truck, it would be only $9 hah).
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How does it work in the summer when you've got a bunch of trash-bags baking in a tin can for several weeks? Does the trash ever turn into rotting goop?
We're pretty careful about what goes into the trash, so there's not much in the way of food waste. It'll smell a bit in the summer, but there isn't really anything that can rot in it. That stuff goes into the compost bin. It's almost entirely dry waste, with the occasional disposable diaper, but those are just for overnight, so they're rarely messy.
Also - trailer registration costs?
Idaho has permanent trailer registration - pay once, you're good forever, and this already had a plate.
Also also - why are those PVs in hte photo not out harvesting electricity for your office-shed?
Which ones? The ones hinged to the east wall of my office connected through a PWM controller to my battery bank? They're not just leaning against the wall, they gather the morning sun as it comes over the road and make a big difference in time to "fully charged" during the morning. https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2016/10/solar-shed-part-13-morning-panels.html
I'd worry about critters getting into a trash pile, but that's just me. Great job saving a few bucks though!
It's up high enough off the ground, and it's fairly well sealed around the bottom, so I'm not that worried about it. Plus, I'm pretty sure our property cat spends a lot of time under there, so any sort of critter would rapidly turn into a playtoy/snack. More the first than the second lately, based on the stuff I'm finding laying around other parts of the property...
My inlaws have outdoor trash storage in burn barrels that aren't exactly well sealed at the bottom after a few years of burning and sitting, and they don't have a problem, so I'm assuming that with nothing much to eat in there, they're not going to bother it. There are far tastier places on the property than a trash trailer without food in it.
* protection for the tires and/or frequent replacement (UV, dry rot/etc.)
It's in a decently shaded area, and I've since tossed some scrap OSB up against the tires to shield them.
the inevitability of having a major problem with the trailer that is that old and likely not well maintained (rusted out lugs, seized bearings, rusted out bed bolts, rusted out suspension components, etc.)
We don't get much in the way of rust here. The trailer doesn't roll many miles a year, and a round trip isn't that far (30 miles). So I'm just not that concerned about it. Worst case I transfer the trash into my truck bed and haul it while I fix the trailer, but if I need another axle or something, old truck axles are a dime a dozen out here.
having a rotting, stinking pile of trash on your property for months at a time ;)
If there's no food in the trash stream, what is there to rot and stink, really? Our trash can we had previously stunk an awful lot more than this does, because we weren't as careful about what went into it.
Glad you have a quality of life improvement, but I would have just held the trash company to account and made it easier to haul the 1/8 mile (say a home made hitch mounted platform). I'd rather do that than deal with the problems above =) Sadly, it would cost about $25 to unload a trailer like that where we live so it wouldn't even be a cost savings (though oddly, if it were a truck bed still attached to the truck, it would be only $9 hah).
My initial attempt involved dragging it behind an ebike, and I destroyed a perfectly good frame that way. Starting the truck to haul a trash can to the top of the driveway is silly as well - I try not to short start it that often.
But, fortunately, I don't have your silly landfill prices. ;)
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We went from $160 yr for pickup to $0 for drop off (not including the taxes we pay) when I retired. We were taking recycling anyway (no pickup offered) and we can fit nearly a month's worth in the trunk of our car for drop off. We have a no food in the trash rule (the chickens get most food scraps) so odor/pests are not much of an issue. Most of the time the trash run can be coupled with other errands, so the additional fuel and wear are negligible.
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We went from $160 yr for pickup to $0 for drop off (not including the taxes we pay) when I retired. We were taking recycling anyway (no pickup offered) and we can fit nearly a month's worth in the trunk of our car for drop off. We have a no food in the trash rule (the chickens get most food scraps) so odor/pests are not much of an issue. Most of the time the trash run can be coupled with other errands, so the additional fuel and wear are negligible.
Nice! There's not much out towards the landfill but a shooting range, so it's not a direction I go regularly, but it sounds like you're doing something similar. Free drop off? Jealous!
Eventually I plan to have some worm bins and chickens to deal with food scraps. One project at a time, though.
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We went from $160 yr for pickup to $0 for drop off (not including the taxes we pay) when I retired. We were taking recycling anyway (no pickup offered) and we can fit nearly a month's worth in the trunk of our car for drop off. We have a no food in the trash rule (the chickens get most food scraps) so odor/pests are not much of an issue. Most of the time the trash run can be coupled with other errands, so the additional fuel and wear are negligible.
Like you I have a $0 trash system. Where I live maybe 90% of the county is forced to have county trash pickup paid as an extra fee on the property tax bill. The area where I live you don't have that - instead you have to pay for private pick up. I was paying $35 / mo. yet had very very little trash which really irritated me. So back in 2007 I decided to cut it off entirely. Like you I compost, recycle, donate, resell, etc... and don't put any food wastes in the trash. This leaves me with almost no trash. Recycling is right on the way to work, and my daily trash can be compacted into the size of a softball which I throw in one of the trash cans on my way from the parking lot to my office.
I wanted to make sure to keep this up, so I made myself an incentive. I started investing my saved trash fees into a DRIP program back in 2007 and will keep it up as long as I don't pay for trash service. So far I am up to about $7,000 in the stock, and the last dividend (in March) was $48.
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Here you must pay for trash whether you use it or not. We had to pay for months when our house was empty.
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In our previous home we paid $78 every two months for trash/recycle pick up. $468 per year.
When we moved I almost went back into that cycle. Instead I realized there were county transfer stations. You pre-pay for the county bags. Recycling is free. We started composting. Now between two people we have maybe a bag per week. I buy the larger county bags which are cheaper per gallon and cram them as full as I can. I know we should probably be producing less trash, that’s a work in progress.
Once year I buy around $70 in county bags and it is plenty. The transfer station is right outside of town so I try to combine trips with other errands.
When were were renovating a rental property we bought I was going to rent a large dumpster but our contractor told me about a dump with a scale that just weighs the pick up before and after drop off. To renovate the 900 square foot house I had four pickup truck trips of junk. Each were around $15-20. So less than $80 overall. Given I’ve always been an office worker, I was proud of the sweat equity I put into the rental.
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Once year I buy around $70 in county bags and it is plenty.
Nice! $400/yr is a good chunk of change to save for thinking about trash a bit!
...a dump with a scale that just weighs the pick up before and after drop off.
How else do they work? That's literally all I've ever seen. I eagerly await the first dump trip with a new vehicle because it's the easiest (and most legal) way I've found to weight a vehicle. Full tanks, I know what I weight, check the slip on the way out and you've got a vehicle weight. :D
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Once year I buy around $70 in county bags and it is plenty.
Nice! $400/yr is a good chunk of change to save for thinking about trash a bit!
...a dump with a scale that just weighs the pick up before and after drop off.
How else do they work? That's literally all I've ever seen. I eagerly await the first dump trip with a new vehicle because it's the easiest (and most legal) way I've found to weight a vehicle. Full tanks, I know what I weight, check the slip on the way out and you've got a vehicle weight. :D
Excuse my newness. I didn’t even know about the weighing thing. I grew up in suburbia that had town junk pick up weeks. So this luxury was new to me!
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Huh. Yeah, all I've ever seen for dumps and transfer stations ($$$ ouch) are weight based. Usually with some minimum. I'm annoyed if I don't hit the minimum weight on a dump run (you pay the same if it's 1lb or 500lb, up to... I think 600lb is the base fee), but my trailer tends to run light and not make minimum.
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Huh. Yeah, all I've ever seen for dumps and transfer stations ($$$ ouch) are weight based. Usually with some minimum. I'm annoyed if I don't hit the minimum weight on a dump run (you pay the same if it's 1lb or 500lb, up to... I think 600lb is the base fee), but my trailer tends to run light and not make minimum.
How far under do you tend to run?
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How far under do you tend to run?
Still working out averages, but I think a trailer load is about 400lb, against the minimum of 600lb. The minimum charge is only $5, so it's not like it's costing me more than a few pennies, but I just like to optimize my loads to the dump. I can always see if my neighbors have anything that needs hauling when I go for a couple bucks (I can toss it in the truck bed before I hook up the trailer).
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I hauled a full trailer today, 360lb. I need to work on increasing the density of trash in there - I noticed that there were a lot of empty milk jugs and the like that hadn't been squashed down. Plus a lot of the trash bags aren't really packed that well. I'm going to work on that, because if I can improve density by 50%, I can get up to the minimum weight, and add another 2-3 months as well.
This time was almost exactly 4 months, but there was a lot of ferret room debris in there from when we tore the old one apart and created a new area for them. So, I think 6 months is doable with some compression.
I'd like to find a use for paper waste. I'm half thinking about building compressed logs out of them, but I'd have to use them in campfires and such, as I don't (yet) have a wood burner.
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Update for those who were wondering about critters: Yes, there are most definitely some mice living in there. We have mice in everything this year - it's a really, really good year for mice, annoyingly. I've had to chase them out of one of my storage deck boxes as well.
I've got a few sticky boards in there now (I don't want to poison them because we have a property cat we rather like), and after I haul the trailer next time (Sept-Nov timeframe), I'll go through with a can of expanding foam and tighten up some other entry points. I have some ideas of where they're getting in, based on where stuff isn't fully sealed up. I wasn't sure that they'd be able to climb the metal frame, but apparently they can. Not a big deal, will iterate on it and come up with something that works.
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I hauled a full trailer today, 360lb. I need to work on increasing the density of trash in there - I noticed that there were a lot of empty milk jugs and the like that hadn't been squashed down.
Do you not have recycling available? Milk jugs shouldn't be going to a landfill.
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Do you not have recycling available? Milk jugs shouldn't be going to a landfill.
I don't have anything resembling meaningful recycling available, no. The one trash company that covered our area and had a recycling bin no longer covers us, so recycling is "I haul stuff to wherever I can find to take it." And, at some fairly low bar, it's not worth separating out every waste stream to drive somewhere to pay them to take it, since the places that take various materials are not all at the same place.
If I want to recycle glass, for instance, the nearest place that takes it is about 40 miles in a direction I rarely go. We don't recycle glass, though I've considered finding some uses for it around the property (haven't found a use yet, since I don't have a way to crush it into powder).
I currently separate out aluminum and steel, and the last box (about 18" cube) of crushed aluminum (10lb) got me a whopping $4. It literally doesn't even cover gas if I make a separate trip for it. Steel... probably far worse, though maybe going up in the moderate future.
If you've got a good solution for recycling plastic in the Boise/Nampa Idaho area that doesn't require me driving an awful lot to haul it, I'm open to suggestions, but I just haven't found much yet. So, it goes to the landfill in small quantities. I'm hauling this trailer every 4 months or so right now, aiming to get it down to every 6 months or longer as I divert more out and possibly build a compactor. Some scrap iron and screw jacks would reduce volume by a ton.
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Update for those who were wondering about critters: Yes, there are most definitely some mice living in there. We have mice in everything this year - it's a really, really good year for mice, annoyingly. I've had to chase them out of one of my storage deck boxes as well.
I've got a few sticky boards in there now (I don't want to poison them because we have a property cat we rather like), and after I haul the trailer next time (Sept-Nov timeframe), I'll go through with a can of expanding foam and tighten up some other entry points. I have some ideas of where they're getting in, based on where stuff isn't fully sealed up. I wasn't sure that they'd be able to climb the metal frame, but apparently they can. Not a big deal, will iterate on it and come up with something that works.
Maybe you could try to drown them. My parents dug buckets of water in strategic locations and the mices got cought in the water and could not get out.
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Maybe you could try to drown them. My parents dug buckets of water in strategic locations and the mices got cought in the water and could not get out.
That's my plan - I'm going to build some 5 gallon bucket mouse traps here soon and put them around to help trap some of this year's surplus of mice.
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Well, got 6 months, 460lb, wasn't totally full, and found somewhere that does take multiple classes of recycling and is more or less an area I go on occasion (sort of near Home Depot/Lowes).
An evaluation of Christmas trash coming plus the fact that winter is about to hit suggested I might want to haul it before it got too nasty out. Though the landfill dirt was bone dry and sandy, which is never fun (also, why I leave my front hubs locked in).
I've foamed the likely entry holes for mice, under the theory that, while they chew the foam if they're inside, they probably won't chew their way in. I'll see if it works. I assume I relocated quite a few from the property to the landfill today, which is just fine with me.
Various things that have been working well:
- Crushing aluminum and tin cans (as possible) really helps reduce volume in the recycling boxes, and the tin cans being pulled out this last cycle helped reduce trash volume.
- Flat-stacking paper waste from junk mail is better than crumpling it and tossing it in the trash. It can be recycled, and takes far less space that way. Downside: Our kid constantly finds stuff in the paper recycling box that she didn't want thrown out.
The plan for the next cycle is more boxes out in the shipping container, with a local staging box in the house so I can haul the recycling out and crush/sort it every few days. I think this will pull a good bit more volume out of the trash trailer, and by moving the recycling boxes out of the trailer, I free up a surprising amount of volume in there that I can use for trash.
My goal for the next cycle is a year. With the diversion of more recyclables out, and the increased room, plus our general working to reduce waste, it should be possible.
Once I get the greenhouses in, I'll probably put a rocket mass heater in that will let me burn a good bit of our waste stream as well - or, at least, that's the hope. Save up the paper and such for winter, when I need to put a touch of heat in the greenhouse.
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Still following. A lot to be learned by examining our waste stream. Is a bit different when a truck doesn't magically pick it up every Turesday! I found burning paper to be a drag. To get it to burn well, it needs to be crumpled, but then it burns too fast. I use just a little to light the woodstove. Now, cardboard, seems to burn much better and actually contain some heat. I use it in fairly large quantities as "kindling". A big enough charge of cardboard will light logs with no trouble.
Is there a place to sell aluminum and or steel close by? It's not worth much, but we sort it out and make a trip to the scrapyard every 6 months or so. I usually get $40-50.
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I hauled a full trailer today, 360lb. I need to work on increasing the density of trash in there - I noticed that there were a lot of empty milk jugs and the like that hadn't been squashed down.
Do you not have recycling available? Milk jugs shouldn't be going to a landfill.
A lot of plastic "recycling" doesn't actually get recycled. It's likely to end up in landfill either way (at least in the USA).
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Syonyk, nice trash trailer! ; ) We're rural as well and service costs are something I've thought quite a lot about over the years. I've got us down to a monthly internet and electric bill (10kw PV offsets most of that in the summer).
Fortunately for us, we have recycling drop-off available only 15 minutes away. Scrap metal I like to haul by the truck full..accepted for free, and not much value in scrap at the moment. Food waste goes to feed the wild critters. Cardboard and junk mail goes in the burn barrel.
One thought to improve your efficiency might be to pick up an old trash compactor, the kind that was popular in the 1970's and 80's. These fell out of fashion when people realized compacted rotting trash in their kitchen wasn't exactly an aromatic delight, and I've seen many scrapped or donated to Habitat stores, still perfectly functional because nobody wants 'em. Tougher to find now, but they're still out there.
BTW, the mouse trap bucket is the only 100% effective method I've yet to find. Pads are second best, but the damn things get away if not checked within hours, and the pads end up 5' away from where they were placed, usually in some unreachable spot.
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Is there a place to sell aluminum and or steel close by? It's not worth much, but we sort it out and make a trip to the scrapyard every 6 months or so. I usually get $40-50.
There is, but we don't generate much scrap metal, and it's worth a couple bucks, at best. It's literally not worth the fuel to haul it unless I'm taking it along with other stuff. I got a whopping $2 for cans yesterday. We don't drink that much soda.
Syonyk, nice trash trailer! ; ) We're rural as well and service costs are something I've thought quite a lot about over the years. I've got us down to a monthly internet and electric bill (10kw PV offsets most of that in the summer).
Nice, we'll have solar next year. That's the next huge project I'm starting, and it's going to be a big one - about 18kW of battery-backed array, with quite a bit east-west facing to optimize self consumption and reduce grid export/import. The well pump draws a good bit during the summer, and we get cold in the winter.
One thought to improve your efficiency might be to pick up an old trash compactor, the kind that was popular in the 1970's and 80's.
I've thought about it, but I thought most of them required special bags to be of any use - which defeats the purpose. If I could squash down stuff in plastic bags without destroying the bags, I'd certainly consider it. I've thought about building my own to mash stuff down - get a surplus wine press or something.
BTW, the mouse trap bucket is the only 100% effective method I've yet to find.
Good to know. I didn't end up getting those built this year, but I'll try them next year.
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Where I live, recycling pick-up is "free". Most garbage goes down our garbage disposal. The rest of the trash I collect in a small plastic grocery bag which I deposit in a trash can when I get gas etc. every couple of days.
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I don't think you're really supposed to put that much down a garbage disposal...
Moar Foam. :D
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nL3ulhijEOw/W_hshAUfgLI/AAAAAAAAw_s/d8m05a6m9TIul9ZO9JHEmVeLfoyBBToSwCLcBGAs/s800/IMG_6687.jpeg)
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Where I live, recycling pick-up is "free". Most garbage goes down our garbage disposal. The rest of the trash I collect in a small plastic grocery bag which I deposit in a trash can when I get gas etc. every couple of days.
Using gas station garbage cans...now there is something I hadn't thought of.
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Where I live, recycling pick-up is "free". Most garbage goes down our garbage disposal. The rest of the trash I collect in a small plastic grocery bag which I deposit in a trash can when I get gas etc. every couple of days.
Lol, my husband works for the water district. We don't get to use our garbage disposal at all. Everything goes into the compost bin, which is part of our flat-rate bill.
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Nice work so far. How about eliminating use of cans, crushing glass first, buying milk in cardboard cartons, and burning all the paper products in a barrel? What else is left?
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Nice work so far. How about eliminating use of cans, crushing glass first, buying milk in cardboard cartons, and burning all the paper products in a barrel? What else is left?
Working on it. Cans are still useful for various things, both aluminum and tin, but those are all recycled.
I'm not terribly interested in setting up a burn barrel yet - at some point, I may consider that once I have the time to build a rocket mass burner. That will likely be tied with a greenhouse, and will make very efficient use of waste paper/scrap/etc to heat things (including some water tanks for fish). But a burn barrel does tend to annoy some neighbors, so until I have a way to burn properly clean, I'm not going to mess with it.
Most of the remaining trash is things like styrofoam from packaging materials (I haven't found a way to recycle that yet), plastic produce bags (at some point, I'll probably build some reusable ones), kleenex (burnable once I get that infrastructure in place), and a small stream of disposable diapers - we mostly cloth diaper, but not 100% (overnight diapers are still disposable for capacity reasons).
At this point, I'm pretty sure I can manage a year on the trash trailer, with how much has been diverted out to recycling.
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Uh, open burning is not without problems.
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I mean, I wouldn't do it during the peak of summer out here, but it's common enough. I just don't want to be emitting much particulate smoke if I am burning, which implies a rocket mass burner with sufficient exhaust length for proper combustion of everything.
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I mean, I wouldn't do it during the peak of summer out here, but it's common enough. I just don't want to be emitting much particulate smoke if I am burning, which implies a rocket mass burner with sufficient exhaust length for proper combustion of everything.
I've never heard of someone fueling a rocket stove with paper goods, but I suppose you could roll it up to make fairly dense sticks. My understanding is that the efficiency of the combustion is primarily due to the high temperature within the insulated heat riser (also the mixing of the gasses due to the sharp turn). Exhaust length is primarily about extracting the heat.
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I've considered making "paper bricks" out of shredded junk mail once I have a proper system to burn them.
And, yes, you're correct about where the combustion takes place, but I still don't have a reason to build a rocket mass device just to dispose of trash.
If I'm making the trip every year (which I now think is doable), I'm spending about $10/yr (and about an hour and a half, total) in trash hauling costs (recycling is ~free as I haul it when I'd otherwise make a trip), so I've optimized things down to the point where it doesn't matter - the materials cost for a burner exceeds the savings, dramatically, unless I need the burner for something else.
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Since reading this thread, I've noticed people take a medium-sized garbage sack from their car and dump it in the trash cans in store parking lots (they remove the top lid to get their gabage bag inside in trash can). Probably would be fined if caught; their risk for a $0 garbage bill.
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I'll throw trash from my car in a gas station trash can every now and then, but I'm not (personally) OK with hauling my trash and tossing it in a school dumpster, or store dumpster, or (whatever). I want to deal with it properly, not freeload on someone else and hope I don't get caught.
I recently posted a picture of my shipping container (now with more shelves), and my recycling array is along the left:
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g_y8ciFwXL0/XC6ang3Z5RI/AAAAAAAAyI0/X5D2g0b3EKU-ulnElo1V0jPW3mw9IPaWACLcBGAs/s1200/P1030243.jpeg)
At some point, I might organize it a bit more and build a rack for more standard size boxes, but it's working well for now.
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Alright, further updates, midway through 2019:
At this point, I'm happy calling myself "net negative" on my trash bill for the year.
I've found places that pay for corrugated cardboard (barely, but I'm not paying to haul it away), I can get paid for aluminum cans, and I've found a place that pays me for the mixed scrap metal (tin cans, random stuff dug out of the ground, other random metal). I can dump paper/chipboard/some plastics for free, along with newspapers and magazines.
It's a non-trivial cost to haul recycling into town were I to make a dedicated trip, but I never do that. I only haul it if I'm going somewhere anyway (I can hit both recycling places on a more or less direct route to Home Depot/Lowes/Costco).
Obviously, I'm still trying to reduce my trash volume, but it's "better than free" at this point!
Also, for those who were concerned about the whole "mice" thing - after the last dump run, I tossed another can worth of foam into the gaps around the bottom of the trailer floor, and so far, I've not seen any evidence of mice in there. I've still got some sticky traps in the runs they normally use, and I've not had any show up. So, the foam seems to have worked. We've no shortage of mice this year, and I'm killing about one a day in the car right now, so the lack of mice in the trash trailer tells me the solution is working.
I also graveled around the base of it, working on tidying up the property.
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EPM4L5hFuss/XNJRnz1d2mI/AAAAAAAA1Sk/AxTVWlI1s6E4syMl1rMY2aAptf3vK0uFACLcBGAs/s800/IMG_7189.jpeg)
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Well, I've been toting my trash to the dump for 4 years. Figured it has saved me over $800, when you count market gains, my stache is probably $1k larger. Since Corona hit, I've been hard pressed to find a time when the dump was not crawling with unmasked people. As such, I have switched back to the wheelie bin pickup for the time being. Wish I could pay by the pickup as we could probably go 3 weeks at a time, but it doesn't work that way.
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I still haven't made a dump run since CV hit, probably will in about 1.5-2 months. Early November seems to be a good time - we start getting freezing temperatures overnight that make sure anything in there is cold enough to be not-that-smelly. I've probably got another year of diapers to haul (we mostly cloth diaper, but haven't figured out how to get them to not soak through overnight, so use disposables for overnight and the occasional longer car trip), and the cold gets rid of any wasps that might be using some crack of the trailer as well. Mice, solved. Wasps, not so much. :/ Chemical warfare it is, and winter finishes it out. Wasp traps go up earlier next year.
I just haul on a Friday morning, aim to get there not too long after the dump opens. I dump down in the trailer area, so I'm pretty well distanced as-is. Idaho isn't doing great on Covid, but our population density is such that I'm just not too worried about it at the dump (and people from high density areas tend to not haul their own trash).
I'm really wondering about the merits of one of those roll-stuff-out tailgate gizmos. I just don't think they'd work very well on a trailer full of trash - I expect the sheet would just pull out from under the stuff. Not a big deal to toss it out by hand, just faintly annoying. But in that a dump trip takes an hour and a half, and the actual removing of trash is 15 minutes, the effective hourly rate is enough that I'll deal with it. ;)
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I'm in Boise, just a bit away from the Costco/Western Recycling that I'm betting is the place you use. If you don't use Western, they're pretty good.
I mostly posted because Ada County switched trash servicers from Republic to Hardin Sanitation. With the change, they've implemented the Hefty Energy Bag program, which you can read about here:
https://www.hefty.com/hefty-energybag/boise-program
Of interest is that they can recycle styrofoam and a lot of kitchen plastics.
It sounds like you're in the more rural part of the county and so you probably don't get recycling service at your property, but you could maybe call Hardin and see if they have any places along your route that you could toss your Energy Bag into or any other ideas for you.
I get to pay for unlimited trash/recycling where I live, so I can't save any money doing this, but it's an interesting project for me to try to reduce my trash volume.
(And as an aside to the poster who said that most plastics end up in landfills, you may be interested to note that in Idaho, the plastics in the Energy Bag program are used as a substitute for burning coal at a cement plant, keeping them out of the landfill and reducing global warming.)
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Hefty Energy Bag program, which you can read about here:
https://www.hefty.com/hefty-energybag/boise-program
Of interest is that they can recycle styrofoam and a lot of kitchen plastics.
Thank you for posting this! It's available in my area too and I hadn't heard of it before
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I'm in Boise, just a bit away from the Costco/Western Recycling that I'm betting is the place you use. If you don't use Western, they're pretty good.
I typically dump (sell) my metals at a place near downtown Nampa (TVR?) and take the cardboard/paper/plastics to a Western Recycling facility up in Nampa by Home Depot at Karcher. I've been happy enough with them, though I've no idea what happens to the recycling after I drop it off. If they were to burn the plastics for power generation, I wouldn't complain. They recently merged their #1/#2 plastics bins (in the past year or so), which makes me wonder a bit about what actually happens to the plastics.
Of interest is that they can recycle styrofoam and a lot of kitchen plastics.
Thanks - that's quite interesting. We don't have much non-#1/#2 plastic in terms of volume, partly through trying to avoid buying the stuff in the first place, but I may call and see.
It sounds like you're in the more rural part of the county...
We're down not far from the best 4th of July in the Treasure Valley. ;)
(And as an aside to the poster who said that most plastics end up in landfills, you may be interested to note that in Idaho, the plastics in the Energy Bag program are used as a substitute for burning coal at a cement plant, keeping them out of the landfill and reducing global warming.)
I'd not seen that before, but I've been making arguments elsewhere that the best thing we can do with plastics is to burn them for energy (based on the recycled plastics being poor quality for more than the cost of new, and a lot of "recycling" ending up floating in the ocean). Good to see it actually happening - concrete is one of the harder processes to electrify.
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Last time we moved we discovered a big bonus - close proximity to the transfer station. They take glass and recycling too. Entire trip is free. We just pile everything in our trailer and drive ~5 mins.
Someone dumped a local district wheelie bin in our woods. Almost kept it but discovered it is really heavy when full so I left it at the transfer station so someone else can take it home. Impossible for me to dump manually.
A retired friend managed their trash for years by taking it to work with them one bag at a time. park their car, dump the bag in the nearby dumpster, start the work day.
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I live in Hong Kong. We have no municipal trash service in my densely populated area, and none available in our building (keeps stairways clean), so I just take it one bag at a time daily and drop it off in a public bin en route to work.
Cardboard and plastic that local collectors can get $ for I place next to the bins, separately.
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Including construction waste from solar (which wasn't really that much, probably 50-100 lbs total in things like empty paint cans, caulk/epoxy tubes, concrete paper bags, etc), 640lb for the past year or so.
Or 0.43lb per person, per day. :/
I need to find a way to drive that down a lot, that's still pretty well obscene (and this is just the stuff going to the dump, not the recycled flows). Nowhere close to zero waste.
At least some of the dense, heavy stuff will be done in the next year, with kid[1] potty training. We use cloth for the most part, but he's still in disposables overnight, as cloth doesn't absorb enough for overnight use. So that's some of the weight. A lot of the rest is the plastics, and I need to go get some of those energy bag things and divert the random plastic films and such out (as I understand it, I can get rid of things like the styrofoam meat packaging and film that way, as long as it's clean). Glass is a nuisance because I have to haul it 30 miles in a direction I don't normally go to get rid of it, so I try to avoid it (though will prefer it over plastics if I can). Also, pet litter (ferrets). I should investigate spreading that down the hill, it's fully biodegradable (wood pellets, ferret pee, ferret poo). That's definitely a good chunk of the mass that likely doesn't need to actually go to the dump.
So, still abysmal, but a work in progress. :/
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Good job!!
I think you'd be surprised how much the energy bags divert. I've started using them, and there's a lot of my household waste that can go into them. Yes, including styrofoam meat packaging. And styrofoam packing peanuts and cups. Not much by weight, but a fair amount by volume.
I recently added a bunch of insulation to my attic, and the plastic bags that the insulation came in were recyclable (#4 plastic), so 27 #4 plastic bags went into energy bags and into my recycling instead of the trash.
I also read that pizza boxes can even go in recycling now even if they have grease/cheese on them - not sure if that's true so I'll probably check with them before recycling those.
I'm diverting more and more with each passing month. I put out my large (75 gallon?) blue trash bin once every three months or so. I'm not a super save-the-earth kind of guy but I enjoy the challenge and am saddened when I pass the city dump, so I work on it as a side project.
I think you're right about the ferret litter, depending on the litter material. If it's treated cedar, maybe not. If it's newspaper, probably so.
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A lot of the rest is the plastics, and I need to go get some of those energy bag things and divert the random plastic films and such out (as I understand it, I can get rid of things like the styrofoam meat packaging and film that way, as long as it's clean).
I haven't heard of these energy bag things. I guess they're only available in a few areas. Collecting film plastics to be burned won't gain traction in my state (California).
Also, pet litter (ferrets). I should investigate spreading that down the hill, it's fully biodegradable (wood pellets, ferret pee, ferret poo). That's definitely a good chunk of the mass that likely doesn't need to actually go to the dump.
Absolutely should just compost the stuff. If your compost is to be used for growing food, you'll want to do some research on temperatures/time frames to destroy pathogens, but otherwise there should not be an issue. I have clay based clumping cat litter as a major component of my landfill stream. Not sure that I would want to switch to a wood pellet litter for a cat (or that the cat would accept it). I certainly can't save money on my trash bill (already at the lowest tier offered by my municipal service that I cannot opt out of).
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A lot of the rest is the plastics, and I need to go get some of those energy bag things and divert the random plastic films and such out (as I understand it, I can get rid of things like the styrofoam meat packaging and film that way, as long as it's clean).
I haven't heard of these energy bag things. I guess they're only available in a few areas. Collecting film plastics to be burned won't gain traction in my state (California).
My understanding is it displaces the burning of coal, so maybe. But California, so maybe not.
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I think you'd be surprised how much the energy bags divert.
I picked up a few today, so time to work them into the trash flow. Still not 100% sure where I'll get rid of them, other than "people I know over there," but I'm hoping one of the transfer stations or such will take them if I call around and ask. The main issue for me is that Boise is outside pure EV range on the car, so I'm burning gas to get over there, which seems slightly silly. We're over there rarely enough (and usually with the full family, so not much cargo room) that it's a dedicated trip to haul stuff, depending on what I find where.
And styrofoam packing peanuts...
Throw... away... packing peanuts? I just save those for reuse and if I have too many, give them to people for shipping needs. Most of the non recyclable packaging (bubble mailers and such) goes into a box for winter shipping and stuff I sell on eBay. I'll even keep USPS boxes and such that are in decent shape - almost all of my shipping lately is with recycled boxes/materials. Even the Amazon boxes can be reused, typically, just reinforce the corner joint with some tape. I was shipping out in new boxes/bubble wrap for a while, but that was hazmat (rebuilt battery packs), and... yeah, the regulations on that sort of thing are stiff and getting worse annually. Perks of the shipping container and shed, I can build shelves and keep an awful lot of stuff around for reuse.
I think you're right about the ferret litter, depending on the litter material. If it's treated cedar, maybe not. If it's newspaper, probably so.
It's pine - so should be fine to spread.
I haven't heard of these energy bag things. I guess they're only available in a few areas. Collecting film plastics to be burned won't gain traction in my state (California).
Of course not, it's California. Say one thing and do the opposite in practice.
The problem with plastics is that plastic recycling is mostly a lie (funded by the oil companies, because the horrible lifecycle of plastics was a problem for further expansion). If you can shred and melt plastic, you generally end up with a labor intensive process that produces a poorer quality material than virgin plastic for the same or higher cost - and that's with dirt cheap third world labor. Get rid of that (which China has, they used to take our "recycling" in the containers headed back and finally got sick of it, so most of it goes to other countries and practically ends up in the ocean), and there's no benefit to the recycled material at all. It's objectively worse material, for more money, than virgin plastic from oil - and it doesn't look like oil prices will make a dent in that any time soon.
For recycling, there are huge issues with sorting, and then even the materials aren't always what's implied on the recycling #s - there are plenty of variations within a type there, if it's not just simply wrong. And there are plenty of plastics you just can't recycle meaningfully - plastic wraps, random bags, etc.
So the energy bag program takes those, and... I think was originally supposed to turn them into diesel fuel, but that process didn't work well. At least currently, they go into a concrete plant and directly offset coal use. I assume the furnace is hot enough to generally break down all the plastics, and it will swallow hard-to-process things like saran wrap and such - because the bags are just going into the furnace, literally.
I would actually be perfectly fine with burning all our plastic waste. The recycling process is mostly a sham, a lot of it ends up in landfills and the ocean anyway, breaking down into more and more microplastics. If we burn it, we (a) have control over where it's being processed instead of shipping it to some other nation to be their problem, (b) we get useful energy out of it, and (c) it removes the optics of "But it's recycled!" that allows people to keep blindly buying plastic. I'll recycle it, but I'd be fine if that turned into "All the plastics go here and we burn them for energy." We've got 20 years or more of coal fired plants that can burn plastic, either for power generation or other processes (concrete being the local one), and maybe we can get away from the stuff by then if people realize just how nasty it really is.
Absolutely should just compost the stuff. If your compost is to be used for growing food, you'll want to do some research on temperatures/time frames to destroy pathogens, but otherwise there should not be an issue. I have clay based clumping cat litter as a major component of my landfill stream. Not sure that I would want to switch to a wood pellet litter for a cat (or that the cat would accept it).
Compost would be for food, yes. One of my spring projects is to try compost again. I built some bins a while back, but I can never get the pit to really heat up - I got one batch hot, briefly, but it just wouldn't stay lit off. I didn't try much this year because I was working on solar, but I should have some cycles next year to work on it. If I bag the greens coming off the leech field (it grows weeds alarmingly well in the spring), I can probably combine those with the dry stuff we have around the property from the rest of the year and get enough nitrogen in the pile to light off. But they dry out and are just a pain to keep going. I suppose some ferret piss is a good supply of nitrogen too... Pick up some more of the pure nitrogen fertilizer in the spring, at least I know it'll get enough nitrogen that way.
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Compost would be for food, yes. One of my spring projects is to try compost again. I built some bins a while back, but I can never get the pit to really heat up - I got one batch hot, briefly, but it just wouldn't stay lit off. I didn't try much this year because I was working on solar, but I should have some cycles next year to work on it. If I bag the greens coming off the leech field (it grows weeds alarmingly well in the spring), I can probably combine those with the dry stuff we have around the property from the rest of the year and get enough nitrogen in the pile to light off. But they dry out and are just a pain to keep going. I suppose some ferret piss is a good supply of nitrogen too... Pick up some more of the pure nitrogen fertilizer in the spring, at least I know it'll get enough nitrogen that way.
Or divert additional waste streams (http://humanurehandbook.com/) if you want to go even more badass on sustainability.
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I am familiar and will leave that for a later project. We've got septic, so I'm extracting at least some of that value in the leech field. I should put an outhouse in at some point, over by my office...