FOGO? | Pad Patter 20/Nov

EXACTLY!

We don't have a separate food organics bin - just trash and the usual recyclables. We compost veggie & fruit bits along with some yard waste. We usually leave grass clippings as is. My husband grinds up downed branches for mulch. We have a yard service do our leaves.

 

I have three pickups a week ... trash, recycles (cans, paper and plastic/no glass) and yard debris (leaves, pine cones, branches, etc.).

This year I was able to just mulch my leaves with my lawn mower vs. bagging them up for pickup. My trees are getting old and aren't growing as many leaves, plus I had two maples cut down this past January ... one was dead and the other one was dying.

 

We've had this for many years - even businesses expect you to choose the correct receptacle. Ours is referred to as a compost bin. If fact, if they catch you putting compostables into your garbage you could get fined - which is to say, if you never, ever put your compost bin out they will give you a nastygram. Our bin is HUGE (like two people could fit in it).

 

Exactly the same response. Even the FOGO thought!

 

I saw the title of the thread and had to see what I was missing out on too.
We have recycling, plastics, glass and paper/cardboard. Which I did religiously til I found out that they don't sort it here and recycle locally they ship everything to China? Not sure what that does for the carbon footprint.
Food waste goes in with the bin stuff to a dump. Garden waste needs a different disposal - also a dump I think but we pay extra for that.

 

Our community has had a 2 bin system for the whole time we've lived in our current house - 17 years! The bins are huge! The black bin is regular garbage. The green bin is organics. That can be everything from garden waste, to compostable kitchen waste (meat, bones and everything including dairy!), tea bags, coffee grounds, used tissues, used paper towels, dirty paper (like with grease from wrapping a burger for example), doggie poop (as long as it is just by itself or is in compostable bags). On top of that, we have recycling like plastic containers, tin cans, paper etc. which is placed in a separate see-through bag that is picked up weekly. The county uses the green bin contents to create compost that the residents can get at a reduced rate. During the winter the county picks up alternating black and green garbage each week. During the summer, the green bin is picked up every week to prevent odors.

 

Two bins here - recycle and garbage. Our recycle options are very small - only Plastics #1-#3, and cardboard/paper.
For leaves and yard waste, you can rake the leaves to the curb, and there's a big truck that comes down the road and sucks them up! It's like a big vacuum. It comes every week from October through mid-December. Or, you can bag them and take them into the city facility, dump out your bags and reuse them. Branches and such get left by the curb and the wood chipper machine comes by and grabs them.
No compost at all. We don't self compost but I'm intrigued if we have space once we get a house.