Calgary recycles

[hulkrogan]

Originally Posted by lubicon

People should put them in their garages or in an enclosure of some sort. There are plenty of houses on my street where people have put them outside, beside their garage and in plain view from the street. My next door enighbor has decided to put theirs out of sight beside their garage. That just happens to be in plain view of my front sidewalk. He doesn't have to look at it but I do every time I enter or leave my house. And from the look of it so far, they are not going to bother using it. I look after the grass etc on that side of their house as it's just a small extension of my yard, but I am definately not going to cut and trim around his bin. (Not) looking forward to seeing how long they go before deciding to move it because it is totally overgrwon with grass and weeds.

Really? You're pissed off about having to look at a blue plastic bin?

You can get a lot worse than that for neighbors. Onces that don't shovel, weed, mow, landscape and have a couple rusting cars on blocks on the driveway.

Getting upset about seeing a blue plastic bin seems a little unreasonable.

[DizzyEdge]

^^ One reason I like alleys, all that crap can stay out of sight.

I decided I would toss bottles with deposits in the blue bin, as saving up enough to make a trip to the depot never seems worth the effort.

24 hrs later they were all gone, just wish the cart pushers had closed the lid.

[freeweed]

Except that if you have a back alley, typically you go there from time to time, so it's not really out of sight at all.

I dunno, I hated having a back lane. People figure because it's not out front of the house, and therefore not "public", that it's an excuse to treat it as a garbage dump. Complete with overgrown grass, rusting cars and rotting fences. Works great in theory until you have to pass by that stuff every single day. I guess if you like "character" in your neighbourhood it's nice...

Bin went out today, hopefully it gets picked up as it was completely full and I have a bunch of other recyclables to cram in for next week. Amused the hell out of me to see how many people have no common sense, nor can they even read a 1 page brochure - roughly half the bins in my area were jammed so full the lid was half open.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Really? You're pissed off about having to look at a blue plastic bin?
You can get a lot worse than that for neighbors. Onces that don't shovel, weed, mow, landscape and have a couple rusting cars on blocks on the driveway.

Getting upset about seeing a blue plastic bin seems a little unreasonable.

It's not that the bins is ugly, it's about how the neighbors have handled the whole thing. I'm sure they don't want the bin in their garage or anyplace in their yard that would be a nuisance for them. Their solution is to put it out of their sight and right beside my gate to my back yard. They will never use it because the location they have chosen is the most inconvenient place they could have picked. They'll never ever see it while I get to look at it every day.

[Stang]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Amused the hell out of me to see how many people have no common sense, nor can they even read a 1 page brochure - roughly half the bins in my area were jammed so full the lid was half open.

I saw the recycling truck in action today when I had to swing past my sister's place in Rocky Ridge. Pretty quick process. I'm not sure what I expected, but the truck just pulls up and pretty much instantly the "claws" come out, grab the bin, dump it, and it's back on the ground.

Speaking of common sense (or lack thereof), I have seen a bunch of bins awaiting pickup that have full, un-collapsed boxes overflowing out of the top. A quick rip here and there and suddenly the box occupies a fraction of the space. Not tricky.

They're probably the same people who would leave a pile of un-collapsed boxes on the ground beside the big green recycling depot bins.

[You Need A Thneed]

Finally got our blue box today. I think I'll have it overflowing by this evening, with all of the boxes and milk jugs I've been storing up. Pickup is still 3 weeks away.

[Ferreth]

My neighbors have rigged their blue bin so they just pull a string from their deck to open the lid and drop the recyclables into the bin below.

[DizzyEdge]

^ genius!

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by Ferreth

My neighbors have rigged their blue bin so they just pull a string from their deck to open the lid and drop the recyclables into the bin below.

Now they just need to rig up a string to pull the bin to it's pickup point and back! They'd never have to leave the house!

[You Need A Thneed]

So, thursday and Friday are the garbage collection days in the areas where I bike to work. Since yesterday I've seen:

- Someone's old small recycling tub filled with recyclables sitting near the front sidewalk (property is laned - garbage collection in back)

- A recycling bin placed in the lane - clearly filled up with garbage - including a garden hose - its was overflowing and the lid couldn't even close

- Nearly 50% of the people on one street had their bins placed at the curb, even though pickup doesn't begin until three weeks from now.

- A regular plastic garbage bin filled with (what looked like) recyclables placed near the curb

- etc.

Perhaps the city should send out the information that was provided with the recycling bins in some other languages as well.

[mersar]

Was up in Tuscany last night and noticed the one issue that I can see with the bins where they are picked up in front of the houses. The truck leaves the bin on the edge of the road, off the sidewalk, and quite a few hadn't been brought back in yet and were laying all over the place. One had actually been hit by someone and was shattered and collapsed in the middle of the road. Now imagine if theres a good wind storm midday when the majority are still on the roads. Good luck finding your own bin.

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by mersar

Good luck finding your own bin.

First thing I did was to get a sharpie and put my address on mine (where it says to). I keep mine in the backyard btw.

[zooropa]

for those who haven't had their first pick up yet - be forewarned that the truck may be full by the time it gets to your house and your blue bin won't be picked up. I imagine this is a one time problem on the first week of service. That is what happened to me, I called 311 and got no confirmation that this is what happened, but from what I saw of the truck when it was near my house, i'm sure that was the case. I didnt mind bringing it back in and waiting an additional week, but they called me back and told me it would be picked up the next day. it wasn't. anyway, no issues since then.

[freeweed]

Fortunately if you lose your bin or it gets destroyed (yeah, the first big windstorm is gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun), you the homeowner get to pay for a replacement bin.

Which makes me wonder - if you stop putting out a bin, does the city stop picking up your garbage?

[MalcolmTucker]

^ This h append to my house in the first week. The truck came by at around 6:30 pm and emptied it. Perhaps they are being a bit more stingy with overtime now that it is more regularized across the entire city. Woohoo for being in phase 1.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Fortunately if you lose your bin or it gets destroyed (yeah, the first big windstorm is gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun), you the homeowner get to pay for a replacement bin.

Which makes me wonder - if you stop putting out a bin, does the city stop picking up your garbage?

If that's the actual city policy, I can see it changing rather quickly as bins start to get lost and broken by random events.

If the my bin was somehow damaged in a windstorm, or tipped over by the truck, then run over by someone else's car, I sure ain't paying for a new one, and the city certainly will provide me with one, unless they don't want my $8/month.

[MalcolmTucker]

Again however, you will have some people free riding and 5% of the households will account for 95% of replacements. (or some other inequitable number)

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Sir.Humphrey.Appleby

Again however, you will have some people free riding and 5% of the households will account for 95% of replacements. (or some other inequitable number)

Sounds like how much of our tax money is already spent. Nature of the beast...

[sauril]

I went home for lunch today, and they were in the process of dropping off the bins.

Finally, the NE gets theirs...

[lubicon]

We had our first pickup on Thursday. Not sure if it was due to extremely heavy volumes filling up the trucks, but they didn't pick mine up until well into the evening. Hopefully this is not going to be an ongoing trend as the bins end up out on the street well into the evening.

Some initial thoughts so far:
1. they need to look at what times they do the pickups in certain areas (ie around schools) and adjust the schedules. The wife said that on the first pickup day, they were going down the street in front of our school doing the pickups (there are houses across the street from the school). It is a narrow road at best and when you factor in school busses parked on the road, parents dropping off their kids, and a big truck trying to pick up recycling bins it just didn't work. They need to wait until school is in session before doing these types of streets.

2. one big drawback to front street pickup in new subdivisions is that there is practically no room to park on street when the bins are out. There is almost no room to start with due to narrow lots and driveways, but add in a street full of bins and there is no room at all.