Author Topic: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?  (Read 17118 times)

Gyosho

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How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« on: July 06, 2016, 03:29:37 PM »
I live in Oakland, CA, where our garbage fee for 3 months for the smallest (20 gallon) can just jumped to $107. That is over $1 a day! And as a Mustachian I generate hardly any garbage. Every OTHER week (not even EVERY week, mind you) I take a tiny bag of garbage out to my big 20 gallon trash can and toss it in. It disappears into the 20-gallon depths and leaves me fuming with rage.

Oakland supposedly has a "zero waste program" and yet they will NOT supply a reasonably-sized garbage can and a service priced accordingly.

What do YOU pay for garbage pickup?

Spork

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2016, 03:39:08 PM »
I live out in the boonies.  There is no "city" trash collection, which means there are 5 (count them, FIVE!) different companies competing for business.  Every day of the week, a different company rolls down our road.

We pay $23/month.  That is trash and trash alone.  It is not bundled with water/sewage/etc.  We have the standard 100gal rollaway container that you see in town.  On odd occasions (like when I've been doing some construction/destruction on the house) I will take that 100gal container and piles of drywall, multiple sacks of debris, broken appliances...  No matter how much I have piled up out there, they have taken it.

Bucksandreds

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2016, 03:39:21 PM »
If you generate hardly any garbage then cancel it and drive it to a nearby dumpster behind a fast food restaurant or apartment complex. (maybe not 100% legal).  In Ohio we pay around $80 for 3 months.  It's worth it for a family of 4.

Shef

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2016, 03:43:14 PM »
At me in Switzerland it's around 1.8$ for a 35l bag. They collect it once a week and bring it to a specialized power-plant for electricity-generation. We have a bag every 2nd week, so we pay around 4$ a month (paper-trash are collected for free, metal and glass should be brought to a collection point).

Yeah, we just have a topic where Switzerland is a cheap country...

stoaX

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2016, 03:48:19 PM »
$10 per month here in Southern California.  But I am in an apartment complex.

SailorGirl

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2016, 04:02:30 PM »
I used to have the option of taking it to the dump myself for about $8 a can.  Another idea is to use grocery bags for trash (small) and toss them out in the garbage provided by most stores.

seattlecyclone

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2016, 04:12:49 PM »
In Seattle the smallest trash can you can get is 12 gallons. This costs $20.60 per month. A 20-gallon can costs $25.25 per month, still less than you pay in Oakland.

Rural

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2016, 05:16:23 PM »
Like Spork, I'm in the land of competing private services (though I think there are only three here). Trash only, no recycling for any price, no municipal service or landfill available for any price. $53 every three months.


samsonator54321

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2016, 05:32:13 PM »
We pay 15 a month and that's a weekly pickup of our 96 gallon trash and bi weekly pickup of our 96 gallon recycling.  This is a home in the suburbs. It's a private company. Maybe it's cheap because pretty much all of the 200 houses in my subdivision use them?

rachael talcott

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #9 on: July 06, 2016, 06:01:56 PM »
After reading this thread, I feel much better about paying $18/mo for twice-weekly pickup.  I really only generate a bag of trash every few weeks, and it does seem expensive for that.  But when I renovate houses, I pull out carpet and such and it is more than worth it for them to take that away. 

Frugalbeach

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2016, 07:14:30 PM »
Zero...nada...nothing.  We were paying about $50-60 every 3 months for weekly trash pickup.  Then we realized we live about 5-10 minutes from a no fee county recycle center (forehead slap).  One quick call to Waste Management to cancel the service was all that was required.
Now, when we have an errand to run, we just toss the trash in the back and kill two birds with one stone.
We average maybe one trip every 7-10 days and literally, it takes 5 to 10 minutes!

Tom Bri

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2016, 07:56:29 PM »
Zero, but we dump a tiny bag once a week at my dad's. He pays, I believe, $16/month. I hope that my services to him cover the value!
My goal is to recycle everything at home. So far, everything but metals and plastics. Metals I probably will never recycle at home, but plastics I can do, once I get around to making my brick kiln.

kimmarg

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2016, 08:09:01 PM »
$3k/year...... included with my property taxes!

MoonShadow

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2016, 08:14:55 PM »
I think I pay $35 every two months.  I have two of those 45 gallon monsters.

redbird

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2016, 08:20:43 PM »
Right now, I have no idea. I'm currently renting an apartment and the cost was presumably built into the monthly rent cost. This apartment community has the whole put your bags of trash in the community dumpster and the leasing office pays for the dumpster to be emptied every so often.

Turnbull

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #15 on: July 06, 2016, 08:55:26 PM »
I sold my rural trash service business nine years ago this summer. I was charging about $22 or $23 per month for weekly service at that time. You do not want to know how expensive it is to buy a diesel packer truck with a bunch of hydraulics and then maintain, repair, insure, and fuel it.

teen persuasion

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #16 on: July 06, 2016, 10:16:12 PM »
Weekly garbage pickup and (now) biweekly recycling is included in our property taxes, about $185 annually.  Not optional.

I believe they will take up to 6 bags/cans of trash per week.  We only ever have one small bag.  Recycling used to be weekly with a provided t bin (open plastic box, basically).  Last year they switched to every other week recycling pickup and gave us huge wheeled totes.  We recycle tons of stuff, but the wheeled things are monsters to roll down to the street in the winter.  The old bins were much easier to  carry down and set on the snowbanks. Totes have to be on level ground so the truck can properly latch on and lift the tote to dump it.  So we have to carve out an empty spot in the snowbanks  at the edge of the road, every 2 weeks (because the plows will immediately fill any open space with snow, of course).

The size of the new recycling totes was an issue at work, too.  We still keep the old  bins in the basement as a collection/transfer method, but the giant tote can't come inside, so we had to find a place for it to live.  Left up front (convenient) random people put trash in it (like dog poop), so we had to go for inconvenient and out of sight.  Guess who tends to get to deal with garbage duty by default?

Urchina

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #17 on: July 06, 2016, 10:32:28 PM »
Weekly pickup of a 35-gallon trash can (smallest size they offer, we hardly ever fill it) and  weekly pickup of 96-gallon green waste plus biweekly pickup of 2 96źgallon recycling canisters for $26/month. I'm in SoCal, coastal.

dragoncar

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #18 on: July 06, 2016, 10:49:22 PM »
So are you allowed to cancel?  I know some cities do not allow this (and IMO somewhat reasonably so to keep neighborhoods clean).  If you can cancel, also consider just splitting with a neighbor.

I'm in the East Bay and my service is pretty reasonable... like $15/mo ($45/quarter).  But I do generate a decent amount of recycling off and on, and I'm happy to have someone take my dog's poop bags away every week.

Taran Wanderer

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2016, 01:18:32 AM »
$17 per month for a 35 gallon garbage can.  No recycling pickup, but we can take our recycling to a couple of different locations nearby.  We could also take our trash for $17.  Once we are out of diapers and have two cans a month instead of 3-4, I may cancel garbage service and haul our own.  We're heading to the transfer station anyway for the recycling...

nottoolatetostart

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #20 on: July 07, 2016, 04:39:35 AM »
$58/3 months for weekly both 96-gallon waste and recycling containers. It is mandatory. This does not include sewer or water. 

Erma

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #21 on: July 07, 2016, 04:44:16 AM »
At the moment CHF 1.80 for 35 liters, soon 2.90 for 35 liters and a 100 as a basic fee per year.

MMMarbleheader

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #22 on: July 07, 2016, 05:54:40 AM »
No idea, pickup included in prop. taxes.

Facilities permit (Transfer station, beaches, and boat trailer parking) is $50/year.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2016, 06:13:12 AM by MMMarbleheader »

Drifterrider

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #23 on: July 07, 2016, 06:09:10 AM »
I don't have garbage pick up.  I take my garbage to the container site.  I'm charged for it in my property tax so I refuse to pay extra (private companies here).

Basenji

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #24 on: July 07, 2016, 06:33:18 AM »
$337 per year for large city trash container and large recycling container, part of city assessment/prop tax, but a separate line item, can't opt out

Cranky

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #25 on: July 07, 2016, 06:45:47 AM »
It's $15/month for weekly trash pickup and recycling every other week. I wish it was the other way around, since we have a lot more recycling than trash. They'll take pretty much anything, though - old furniture, yard waste, appliances... I think the only exception is tvs and monitors. Those you have to take down to the electronics recycling place.

Jack

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #26 on: July 07, 2016, 06:56:50 AM »
In the City of Atlanta, I pay $462.87/year (almost $40/month!). I have zero choice about it, short of moving, as it is assessed by the city as part of my property tax(!) but broken out separately as a flat fee instead of being included in the millage rate (so every single-family homeowner apparently pays the same amount). There is no choice about bin size or anything like that: everyone gets 96-gallon "Herby Curby" trash containers and recycling containers and weekly pickup of trash, recycling and yard waste.

I haul my gigantic trash can out to the curb only about every third pickup, with a few small bags of trash way down at the bottom of it (along with my somewhat-less-empty recycling can), fuming with rage at the outrageous cost.

Then I go lobby my city councilperson to institute a "pay as you throw" system like the (much more well-run) neighboring suburb of Decatur has, so far without success.

The whole "included in property tax" part is the real bitch; I can't even refuse to pay in protest because they'd foreclose on my house!

: (

GuitarStv

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #27 on: July 07, 2016, 07:42:38 AM »
In Toronto we have different sizes of bin:

Small - 17.76 per year
Medium - 115.38 per year
Large - 295.14 per year
X Large - 411.23 per year

We've only ever used the small bin.  It's about the size of a third of a black plastic garbage bag.  Garbage pickup and recycling alter weeks, so you only get garbage picked up every other week.  Compost is picked up each week.

PhrugalPhan

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #28 on: July 07, 2016, 08:39:09 AM »
For most of the county I live in it is added to your property tax bill.  Thankfully here it is not, so there are private companies doing pickup at about $30 / mo.   Since I recycle and compost everything I can, I am left with so little I can bag it up and drop off at a store garbage bin or my work location daily (usually just a handful or two in size).  I have had no garbage pickup since 2007, and at that time I decided to do an experiment and take that money and put it monthly into a DRIP and see how it would grow over time.  Today the DRIP is around $6,000 and the latest dividend was almost $40.

Chris22

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #29 on: July 07, 2016, 08:43:12 AM »
Something like $60-75 every two months for weekly pickup of a 96gal trash can and a 96 gal recycling bin.  I don't believe there is any cheaper option; sometimes it's too much, but plenty of other times I abuse it by throwing away a ton of remodeling or yard waste, and it's nice to have the capacity. 

andy85

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #30 on: July 07, 2016, 09:02:31 AM »
zero dollars for trash/recycling...although i know it's included in my taxes somewhere

HPstache

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #31 on: July 07, 2016, 09:16:44 AM »
In my city, it's a base charge of something like $10.00/mo then for each can you put out it's $8.00... you chose when to put it out the can, they come every week regardless.  Typically, we put the can out twice a month, so our bi-monthly bill is around $50.00 or about $25.00/mo .  We are trying to get it down to 3 cans every 2 months rather than 4.  Recycling is free once you buy the bins.

To comment on the original post dilemma, you should really look into bringing the can to the dump yourself rather than paying for the service... that could be a nice little cost savings.  A nice little bonus of owning a pickup or a vehicle with a small trailer.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2016, 09:22:08 AM by v8rx7guy »

snogirl

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #32 on: July 07, 2016, 09:17:44 AM »
I do not pay for curb side pickup (it is not free in my little town).
My county does have 6 locations as part of a solid waste district.
HazMat is free as well as recyclables, metal, books, batteries, yard waste.
A 33 gallon barrel is $3.75.  Smaller bags are around two bucks.
It also has a re-use building at all locations that are great for picking & re-selling.
Over the last couple of years, I have made probably 500+ dollars offsetting my trash costs.
My monthly trash spending is less than 10 dollars.

golden1

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #33 on: July 07, 2016, 09:20:24 AM »
Nothing - directly.  One of the beautiful things about living in a business friendly town is the dual tax rate.  I pay very low property taxes compared to neighboring towns but receive a lot of benefits.  We get curbside pick up of both trash and recycling. 

acroy

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #34 on: July 07, 2016, 09:21:49 AM »
$27/mo, once a week pickup. All items must fit inside the city-supplied (huge) dumpsters. Normally no problemo; but we recently redid some floors and generated a lot of waste (carpet, etc). Extra one-time pickup fee $20, which i thought was very reasonable.

Ceridwen

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #35 on: July 07, 2016, 10:14:42 AM »
Weekly garbage, recycling and compost pick-up is included in our municipal taxes.

fattest_foot

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #36 on: July 07, 2016, 10:22:13 AM »
It's $15/month for weekly trash pickup and recycling every other week. I wish it was the other way around, since we have a lot more recycling than trash. They'll take pretty much anything, though - old furniture, yard waste, appliances... I think the only exception is tvs and monitors. Those you have to take down to the electronics recycling place.

Same here (and after reading this thread, I'm a lot happier about my $15 than I was before).

We put our trash out every week just because we throw chicken carcasses and dog poop bags in there and it smells horrific. But as far as actual trash, we produce less than a full bag a week usually. I have no idea how my neighbors end up with an overflowing can every single week.

Our recycling, mostly due to cardboard, seems to pile up as we wait for the biweekly pick ups. If we miss a week, we have to play catch up.

Helvegen

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #37 on: July 07, 2016, 10:25:22 AM »
$50 every three months. We have one regular 20? gallon trash can (smallest offered size anyway) and one midsize blue recycling can.

Catbert

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #38 on: July 07, 2016, 04:56:17 PM »
By law San Diego has free trash pick up for residences.  It's kind of a funny story.  Over a hundred years ago the city charged residents for garbage pick up.  Then people found out that the city was selling the garbage to pig farms in LA for feed. Apparently people were upset enough about being charged for something that the city turned around and sold that free trash pick up was added to the  city charter.

Every few years there some talk of changing the charter, but this issue has turned in the third rail for local politics.

startingsmall

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #39 on: July 07, 2016, 09:00:41 PM »
I live out in the boonies.  There is no "city" trash collection, which means there are 5 (count them, FIVE!) different companies competing for business.  Every day of the week, a different company rolls down our road.

We pay $23/month.  That is trash and trash alone.  It is not bundled with water/sewage/etc.  We have the standard 100gal rollaway container that you see in town.  On odd occasions (like when I've been doing some construction/destruction on the house) I will take that 100gal container and piles of drywall, multiple sacks of debris, broken appliances...  No matter how much I have piled up out there, they have taken it.

Ditto all of this, except we pay $25/month and we get a recycling bin in addition to our trash can. I don't understand the logic of having so many companies run the same route... and in my area, most of them pick up on the same day! Not sure if that's better or worse...

FrugalTravelGal

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #40 on: July 07, 2016, 09:08:04 PM »
I was just charged $100.90 by Republic Services for 3 months of once-a-week service with the provided ~90-gallon trash can. A separate truck comes by to empty the small all-in-one recycling bin.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2016, 09:17:43 PM by FrugalTravelGal »

couponvan

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #41 on: July 07, 2016, 09:56:36 PM »
All the trash I want to generate every week is FREE...included in my taxes.

BUT....recycling is $4/month, and yard waste is like $4 a BAG.

How ass backwards is that? Oh - and you get a $50 fine if your recycling is overweight. Welcome to the Midwest! Here many of the people don't recycle and throw their yard waste in the trash too.

I came from CA where the opposite was true - tiny trash cans and huge yard waste/recycle bins. It drives me crazy to see all the trash every week.

seattlecyclone

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #42 on: July 07, 2016, 09:59:41 PM »
All the trash I want to generate every week is FREE...included in my taxes.

BUT....recycling is $4/month, and yard waste is like $4 a BAG.

How ass backwards is that? Oh - and you get a $50 fine if your recycling is overweight. Welcome to the Midwest! Here many of the people don't recycle and throw their yard waste in the trash too.

I came from CA where the opposite was true - tiny trash cans and huge yard waste/recycle bins. It drives me crazy to see all the trash every week.

Yeah, that's definitely the opposite of what we have in Seattle. You can put out as much recycling as you want for no charge, but they charge for landfill can service with varying sizes and the larger sizes are pretty expensive!

Yaeger

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #43 on: July 07, 2016, 10:06:06 PM »
Single guy, gone for long periods of time for work. Too cheap for $20 a month trash fee so I put trash in small bags, toss it into my backpack, and dispose of it at work.

fishnfool

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #44 on: July 08, 2016, 12:04:47 AM »
I'm in Santa Cruz Co. We pay $57 every 3 months for a 32 gallon cart, we also have a recycling cart and greenwaste both 64 gallon included service.

fishnfool

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #45 on: July 08, 2016, 12:14:25 AM »
Oakland increased their rates 47% in 2015 but the rate you describe OP sounds much higher than that....Unbelievable!

 WM must be making the City pay the price for trying to get rid of them in 2014. I know the sanitation workers there are some of the highest paid on the west coast.

Zero waste comes at a price!  ;)

Laserjet3051

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #46 on: July 08, 2016, 10:00:25 AM »
Just under $20/month in Orange County, CA. This includes refuse, recycling, and green (yard) waste.

reader2580

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #47 on: July 08, 2016, 10:32:56 AM »
I pay around $11 a month for recycling and trash service.  I have the smallest trash container I can get and it was maybe 1/4 full this week.

I know that a lot of cities require trash service so you can't just cancel and haul your trash elsewhere.

Davids

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #48 on: July 08, 2016, 10:36:27 AM »
I live in a HOA where i pay $85/month which includes garbage pickup among other things.

katsiki

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Re: How much do you pay for garbage pickup?
« Reply #49 on: July 08, 2016, 10:41:09 AM »
$72 every 3 months.  They pick up twice per week.  I usually only put trash out once a week or sometimes every other week.  As others have said, I'm in an area where there a number of companies.  My company is a smaller local company and I like to keep it with them.  Larger regional companies are around the same price.