Question about garbage

[MoneyGoatee]

Hello everyone, this is my first post.  I'm curious to know how much garbage an average mustachian has.  If you don't spend needlessly, don't buy stuff unnecessarily, and overall do things in non-wasteful manners, I would imagine you  produce less waste than the average person.  Is this true?  This is kind of a good thing, of course.  It is a great environmental thing, and garbage management and recycling could be a headache, for the individuals, your neighborhood, and even for a nation.  (China has stopped accepting waste from the US, causing difficulty for Americans in disposing waste.)

[Fi(re) on the Farm]

I have a 13 gallon trash can and replace the bag every few days, not because it's full but because it can get smelly. We compost, recycle and don't buy a lot of stuff so we don't have a lot of trash compared to my neighbors.

[MoneyGoatee]

No to mention, you lower the time (and money) you spend on managing waste.  Here in NYC, you cannot throw electronic waste into the trash or you are fined.  You must dispose it on your own via recycling events and/or PAY recycling companies to take it out of your hands.

[DaMa]

I think it is very true.  I use a bathroom size waste basket in my kitchen, because the bigger one got smelly before it got full.  I don't compost, but do have curbside recycling.  Most of the time, my recycling bag fills up faster than my trash bag.  My dilemma is how often to roll the cans to the curb.  I'm currently doing every other week, but they are maybe 1/4 full.

[bacchi]

We put out a 13 gallon trash bag once every 3 weeks. We'd wait, because the city garbage can is larger, but the cat litter starts to stink.

Our tenants in the front, however, regularly overflow their can and roll it out every week. They eat a LOT of take out.

[AMandM]

We are a family of five (three teenagersr), with curbside recycling and compost pickup as well as garbage.  We fill the recycling wheelie bin most weeks. We fill the 5-gallon compost bin 3/4 full or more most weeks. Our garbage is usually one 13-gallon bag, unless we've been doing some purging.

[seattlecyclone]

In Seattle we have weekly pickup for garbage and compostables, biweekly pickup for recycling. We have a 12-gallon garbage can that rarely fills up (could easily do with biweekly pickup and/or a smaller can if they were offered), a 13-gallon compost can that often fills up in the summer because of yard waste, and a much larger recycling bin that often gets pretty full.

[SunnyDays]

Normally, I live alone and produce very little actual garbage.  It would take me at least a month to fill up a grocery bag and close to a year to fill my outdoor trash can.  I recycle and either give away food scraps to people who raise pigs or take to the dump for compost.  I’m a light eater, so not a lot of kitchen waste and buy very little apart from food.  I currently have a roommate who produces at least 10 times the garbage I do (and couldn’t be bothered to recycle) and it totally appalls me because it’s just so unnecessary.  But I imagine she’s the norm, because most people just really don’t care.

[roomtempmayo]

With weekly garbage pickup, we usually produce some fraction of a single bag.  When bringing the garbage to the curb, I often discover it's empty and have to go around the house emptying cans until I have something to roll to the curb.

[jeninco]

With weekly garbage pickup, we usually produce some fraction of a single bag.  When bringing the garbage to the curb, I often discover it's empty and have to go around the house emptying cans until I have something to roll to the curb.

This. We actually have the option of pre-buying bags that come with pickup rolled in, and it makes financial sense to use those instead of a roller bin if they go out every 3 weeks or less. I think we put ours out every 4-5 weeks. Last time I went to buy more, the lady pulled up my records and laughed (they come in boxes of 30 or so that last us years and years.).

We could also put our our recycling every 4th week instead of every second, but it fills up a bit faster. We also have both a compost bin (for kitchen waste) and city compost (which we use mostly for yard waste: it's pretty dry here, and sticks aren't going to compost in real time in a backyard bin.)

I suspect that cat litter is a major contributor to our overall trash quantity, honestly.

Edited to add: Family of four, 2 adults and 2 older teens

[secondcor521]

Household of three.  I have a recycling wheeled bin and a trash wheeled bin, both 90 gallons I think.  The city picks up trash weekly and recycling bi-weekly, but I only put them out when full or nearly full.  I usually put out the recycling every 4 or 6 weeks and the trash every 6 to 8 weeks.  I could go longer if I compacted things, as a lot of my recycling is gallon plastic jugs.

I'd like it if my city had a compost program of some kind; they do limited runs for leaves and Christmas trees but that's it.  Sometimes I'll put grass clippings in the trash just to fill it up and keep the size of the compost pile (which doesn't really compost that well - I must be doing things wrong) down.

ETA:  In my case, bi-weekly means every week.  You either have an orange recycling sticker or a blue recycling sticker to tell you which weeks are your week.  This is a subtle nod to our local football team's colors.  (Go Broncos!)

[flipboard]

35l for two people every two weeks. Or 450l per person per year. That's quite a bit, but fortunately decreasing (and a lot of it is air due to plastic food packaging).

[Syonyk]

I haul about a trailer full a year at this point.  It's around 400-500lb, not quite enough for minimums at the dump.  This year, a lot of it is disposable diapers (we cloth diaper, but disposables work better at night), so volume should be down next year.

The rest goes to recycling, of various forms, which more than pay for the dump runs (though perhaps not for hauling the recycling - I drag it with when I'm looping up to Home Depot, so it's effectively free).

Not sure how this compares to average, though - most people don't deal in trash by weight unless they haul their own.  We certainly don't pack the trailer densely.

[jpdx]

Does biweekly mean twice per week or once every two weeks?

Anyway, I think the Portland Oregon curbside schedule is great for discouraging excessive garbage:

Recycling every week
Compost/yard waste every week
Garbage every other week

Also there is tiered pricing for the garbage cans depending on size. We recently downsized our can (it's now smaller than the recycle can) and this saves us $.

[APowers]

Family of four (two adults, two elementary schoolers). We throw away about three grocery bags worth each week. No recycling, though food scraps generally get composted, and paper products get used as fire-starter. Unless I'm remodeling (which I am right now), and then I generate WAYyyyy more trash than fits in our weekly 96-gallon bin.

[Fishindude]

We have a big 40 gallon trash container we roll out to the street for pickup.   We recycle all of the glass and metal type items, burn anything that will burn (live very rural), the balance goes in the trash bin which we hardly fill half full each week.   We don't compost, vegetable scraps, etc. just get pitched out in the weeds.

[NinjaSalad]

My city provides big trash and recycling carts to each resident (I think they are around 90-gallons or so).
The trash is picked up weekly and the recycling is every other week.

It takes us well over a month to fill the trash cart - and it never stinks :)
We do this by being vegan, growing a lot of our own food (our property includes an extra half lot that we converted to a huge garden), composting all vegetable scraps, paper and cardboard for our garden, we also vermicompost so our worms eat some of the scraps as well. I am always amazed on trash day when I see my neighbors pull out a stinky cart that is overflowing every single week.

There was a time when we could fill the recycling cart for every pick up, but we are working on lessening our environmental impact so our consumption of recyclable goods has greatly decreased. When we need to buy something, we always try to buy used whenever possible - this greatly reduces plastic/packaging waste and is great for our wallet!

[Just Joe]

I think it would take us a month to fill up a 40 gallon rolly bin. We live in a rural area so we have to take our own garbage to the transfer station. I could pay for a service but don't think we'd get alot of value from it.

We can go a month before the recycling gets out of hand. 

[honeybbq]

We are a family of four -- two adults, two teens.  Seattle has garbage, compost/yard waste, and recycling containers.  Garbage and compost are picked up weekly, recycling every other week.  We have the second smallest garbage bin -- 22 gallon size.  We usually only put one kitchen-sized bag in weekly, but the cost structure disincentivizes dropping down to the smallest bin (13 gallon) so we keep the larger size to be safe and ensure we never have to pay extra bag charges.  We have the largest compost/yard waste size (96 gallons) because we have a large yard and lots of garden-related compost -- probably fill the bin 2/3 of the year -- and again the cost structure disincentivizes downsizing.  Recycling is free and we have the largest bin (96 gallons) -- it usually is about 1/3-1/2 full with recycled paper, cardboard, cans and bottles etc.

This is us to a T. Most of our "trash" is compost, yard waste, and recycling. We have 2 dogs and lots of dog poop otherwise we'd be in the teeny tiny bin for actual trash.

[GuitarStv]

We produce about one grocery bag of trash every two weeks.  In the same time we produce about twice the quantity of compost, and probably a bit more than that of recycling (junk mail, unwanted/unread papers left at our door, flyers, food packaging, etc. really add up).

[BlueHouse]

Holy cow, my niece is spending the summer with me and I have to take out the kitchen trash at least 2x per week now (I took it out about 1x every 1-2 weeks before, just to get it out of the house).  It's horrifying how much trash all the pre-packaged foods and take-out containers make.  The trash is extremely light, made up mostly of empty plastic containers and plastic bags. 
2 more months...2 more months....2 more months.

[x02947]

With bad experiences with our dog, little ones, and a poorly laid out kitchen, we use plastic grocery bags as our trash bags.  We fill one up every 2-3 days or so, but sometimes I'll empty it at the end of the day regardless to keep it from smelling.  Mostly food scraps and toddler waste (I will cut out the glued and stickered portion of the "art" so I can still recycle the rest of the paper).  Our goal this summer is to start composting to help out our small-but-growing garden, so we'll see how much that helps out in reducing food scraps as well as food packaging waste. 

My parents and relatives do not recycle.  At all.  It drives me absolutely nuts to the point of being a character flaw.  I offer to take their trash out and will secretly take the easily accessible recyclable stuff out of the top and toss it in my car to take home with me. 

[robartsd]

My waste service is the lowest option available - 30 gallons bin emptied weekly and includes up to two 90 gallon recycling and two 90 gallon green waste bins picked up every other week. Our household of 2 adults and 1 cat would take at least 3 weeks to fill the 30 gallon bin (about half the volume - well over half by weight - of its contents is usually clumping litter). It might take us two months to fill one 90 gallon recycling bin (that might be reduced to six weeks if we included the redemption value items). We compost plant scraps on site, so the green waste bin is only used for leaves and cuttings that are tainted with litter (blown in off the street - front 10-20' of property) or cuttings from invasive weeds (the green waste collected is used at the landfill as a cover material, not composted).

We produce about one grocery bag of trash every two weeks.  In the same time we produce about twice the quantity of compost, and probably a bit more than that of recycling (junk mail, unwanted/unread papers left at our door, flyers, food packaging, etc. really add up).

A lot of food packaging (film plastics, oil contaminated paper, Styrofoam) is not recyclable in many areas. These account for the bulk of our garbage. Our recycling is about half junk mail and about half non-redemption value food containers.

[mm1970]

Probably about 1 tall kitchen garbage bag a week for a family of 4.

Our compost bins (we have two), can't keep up though.

[I'm a red panda]

We have biweekly (every other week) trash pickup of a 35 gallon can. With 2 kids in diapers, 2 adults, and 2 dogs we fill it every time. We are very careful about generating trash because we have no extra room for it and it's a point of pride for me to not go to weekly pickup.
(We also have weekly recycling pickup)

[ramzire]

I fill one grocery bag about every two months and put the garbage out about twice a year.  Its mostly air.  I compost and recycle way more than I throw away.

[Zikoris]

We don't produce very much - we use grocery bags for it and go through one a week normally. We compost, recycle, and don't buy much.

[BudgetSlasher]

After composting, recycling, and bottle deposits, on a normal week we only generate a partial trash bag that is labeled 8-9 gallons.

That will probably go up next winter, as the bag the pellets for the stove come in are no longer recyclable.

And of course things week by week. This week the 55 gallon bag from the workshop will be going out (been collecting for over 6 months), and a 30 and 55 gallon bag from what amounts to spring cleaning and remodeling work in the basement. 

[DadJokes]

This is something that I want to get better at. We produce a fair amount of garbage, and I know we throw away a lot of things we could be recycling or composting. In truth, I can only focus on 1-2 things at a time, but once I get them on autopilot, I'll work on this.

[simonsez]

We don't compost, vegetable scraps, etc. just get pitched out in the weeds.

Close enough!  I'd say that counts.  It will decompose and return to the soil much faster that way as compared to lying surrounded by plastic wrap at a dump.

Having canvas grocery bags, composting, re-usable food wraps (replaces Saran/cling wrap), and the re-usable silicone zippable bags are four changes we didn't really do 5 years ago that have helped reduce the amount of waste/recycling our household creates.

[roomtempmayo]

It's horrifying how much trash all the pre-packaged foods and take-out containers make. 

Packaging waste is one of my big reservations about shopping at the cheapest grocery stores.  Thin film plastic packaging, black plastic trays, plastic wrap, styrofoam trays, the list of unnecessary, non-recyclable packaging seems endless.

I can go to the local food co-op, shop mostly from bulk sections using no containers or reusable ones, and produce basically zero packaging waste.  The rub is that it costs 2-3x as much as the cheap grocery stores.

Just typing this has made me resolve to get to the farmers market this week.

[MoneyGoatee]

It's horrifying how much trash all the pre-packaged foods and take-out containers make. 

Packaging waste is one of my big reservations about shopping at the cheapest grocery stores.  Thin film plastic packaging, black plastic trays, plastic wrap, styrofoam trays, the list of unnecessary, non-recyclable packaging seems endless.

I can go to the local food co-op, shop mostly from bulk sections using no containers or reusable ones, and produce basically zero packaging waste.  The rub is that it costs 2-3x as much as the cheap grocery stores.

Just typing this has made me resolve to get to the farmers market this week.

One thing that annoys me is that when I buy things online, they sometimes come with the same bulky anti-theft packaging used for brick-and-mortar stores. 

[CheapScholar]

I compost which cuts down on a lot of the food waste.  I wish everyone would at least compost things like banana peels, apple cores, corn cobs.

For our family of 3 we fill up one medium garbage bag every week.  We have a massive garbage tote and neither of the two companies in our town offer a smaller one which really pisses me off.  Our recycling bin fills up faster but only gets picked up every other week.

[marty998]

It's horrifying how much trash all the pre-packaged foods and take-out containers make. 

Packaging waste is one of my big reservations about shopping at the cheapest grocery stores.  Thin film plastic packaging, black plastic trays, plastic wrap, styrofoam trays, the list of unnecessary, non-recyclable packaging seems endless.

We can send our soft plastic wrappings back to the supermarket for recycling, so that has cut down a little bit of waste for me.

Otherwise my garbage is usually one small bag a week - I normally reuse the soft plastic bread or fruit/veg bags for this purpose.

[SecondEngineer]

I live with one roommate and we work together on things like dinner a lot in our apartment. For the first 6 months we lived in the apartment we resolved to leave our garbage bags inside, in the corner of the room, to help us internalize how much waste we produce. They are 5 gallon bags and we ended up with about 8 of them after 6 months. I'm really proud that I've been able to reduce my waste a lot. We compost and recycle as well, which really helps keep garbage and means the garbage is mostly really "clean" things. Over the 6 months it didn't smell, leak, or anything.

A lot of people mention taking out the garbage extra times because it smells. Is that because you put food in the trash?

[I'm a red panda]

A lot of people mention taking out the garbage extra times because it smells. Is that because you put food in the trash?

It costs twice as much for us to have city pickup compost as it does garbage. We don't have an area to do our own compost. The worst smell offenders in our trash are raw chicken, toddler poop, and dog poop.

[robartsd]

It costs twice as much for us to have city pickup compost as it does garbage. We don't have an area to do our own compost. The worst smell offenders in our trash are raw chicken, toddler poop, and dog poop.

Where are you at that charges more for compost than for garbage? (Or is it just a charge for each and you use the smallest garbage service offered?) There are lots of places that don't offer compost pickup (including my area - our "Green Waste" is not composted).

There is an organization in our city that picks up compost materials (mostly from restaurants) by bicycle and takes them to compost host sites (backyards and community gardens) where they build compost piles.

[Blueberries]

Our family usually has one 7-gallon trash bag a week. We compost ourselves, but we have a recycling service and we almost always fill the 50 gallon can weekly.

[GuitarStv]

What the hell is a gallon?

[MsPeacock]

We have recycling pick-up and I actually pay for composting pick-up, and I take the film plastics to the grocery store for recycling (since they can't go with the regular recycling). For "regular" garbage that just leaves non-recyclable non-compostable stuff like Styrofoam trays from meat, cat litterbox scoopings, used kleenex, misc random packaging, etc. Maybe one 13 gallon bag a week goes into regular trash + litterbox which is maybe 1/2 that amount (3 cats) or less. I wish it was less. Taking the film plastic to the store actually cut the trash down significantly as a ton of stuff is packages in plastic bags and film plastic.

[secondcor521]

Is pet litter compostable?  Does it depend on the animal?  Whether you can handle the gross factor?  Google suggests some people do it.

(I'm thinking more of the paper/straw/pine pellet type stuff for small animals.  I have cat litter also and it seems that stuff is very unlikely to be compostable.)

[fat-johnny]

Single guy, household of 1, no pets.  My garbage is "paid for" through my property taxes, so there is no way for me to opt out or save money in any way.  The service is paid for.

I don't recycle much of anything except cardboard from my Amazon purchases.

I put out one 13-gallon kitchen bag per week, full or not.  Most of the time, I'd say it's over 66% full.  Junk mail, the occasional take-out container or two.  Packages from meats and stuff from making the week's meals.

FJ

[I'm a red panda]

It costs twice as much for us to have city pickup compost as it does garbage. We don't have an area to do our own compost. The worst smell offenders in our trash are raw chicken, toddler poop, and dog poop.

Where are you at that charges more for compost than for garbage? (Or is it just a charge for each and you use the smallest garbage service offered?) There are lots of places that don't offer compost pickup (including my area - our "Green Waste" is not composted).

There is an organization in our city that picks up compost materials (mostly from restaurants) by bicycle and takes them to compost host sites (backyards and community gardens) where they build compost piles.

This is what our trash costs are (as a city resident, you have to have one of these)

65 gallons, weekly, for $15 per month
35 gallons,  weekly, for $13 per month
35 gallons, every other, for $8 per month (we use this one. Per gallon though it's most expensive, which pisses me off)

Plus $5 monthly for weekly recycling pickup, 95 gallon bin.


Compost is $3 per 25 gallon bag. Bags must be purchased at the grocery store. (They lowered this from when I last looked. It used to be $6 a bag, except yard waste which was $3.)

[I'm a red panda]

What the hell is a gallon?

Really? It's about 3.8 liters.

[mm1970]

What the hell is a gallon?

approx 3.785 liters

[sisto]

We get the smallest size can available for garbage and never fill it up. We compost ourselves and have green waste and recycle bins through the county. We absolutely have less waste than most. I have not seen anyone else in my area with the small garbage bin and most are full every week.

[erutio]

I live with one roommate and we work together on things like dinner a lot in our apartment. For the first 6 months we lived in the apartment we resolved to leave our garbage bags inside, in the corner of the room, to help us internalize how much waste we produce. They are 5 gallon bags and we ended up with about 8 of them after 6 months. I'm really proud that I've been able to reduce my waste a lot. We compost and recycle as well, which really helps keep garbage and means the garbage is mostly really "clean" things. Over the 6 months it didn't smell, leak, or anything.

A lot of people mention taking out the garbage extra times because it smells. Is that because you put food in the trash?

@SecondEngineer, how do you compost in an apartment?

[SecondEngineer]

I live with one roommate and we work together on things like dinner a lot in our apartment. For the first 6 months we lived in the apartment we resolved to leave our garbage bags inside, in the corner of the room, to help us internalize how much waste we produce. They are 5 gallon bags and we ended up with about 8 of them after 6 months. I'm really proud that I've been able to reduce my waste a lot. We compost and recycle as well, which really helps keep garbage and means the garbage is mostly really "clean" things. Over the 6 months it didn't smell, leak, or anything.

A lot of people mention taking out the garbage extra times because it smells. Is that because you put food in the trash?

@SecondEngineer, how do you compost in an apartment?

We have some repurposed bulk yogurt tubs that each hold about a quart (about a liter). Food scraps go in those, then at the end of the day that is emptied into a 5 gallon bucket with an airtight lid right outside our door. That in turn is emptied about once a month at various places that take scraps. I had to ask around quite a bit to actually find some community farms willing to take the scraps.

It costs twice as much for us to have city pickup compost as it does garbage. We don't have an area to do our own compost. The worst smell offenders in our trash are raw chicken, toddler poop, and dog poop.

Oh wow I never considered diapers and dog poop! Yeah I wouldn't want that in my house for long. I solved the meat scraps issue by going vegetarian.

I agree that sometimes composting takes more effort than garbage. Hopefully composting will become more mainstream and it will make it easier for the average person to do.

[AnswerIs42]

What the hell is a gallon?

approx 3.785 liters

...if you're in the US. In the UK it's 4.546 litres. The joys of imperial measurements, they're not even consistent between themselves...

[former player]

A lot of people mention taking out the garbage extra times because it smells. Is that because you put food in the trash?

It costs twice as much for us to have city pickup compost as it does garbage. We don't have an area to do our own compost. The worst smell offenders in our trash are raw chicken, toddler poop, and dog poop.

Raw chicken: no need to be throwing this out in the garbage.  A whole carcass can make stock, and if buying in smaller quantities add any small scraps to a bag in the freezer until you have enough to make stock.