Recycling Issues

[danbrotherston]

For everything else which is literally referred to as "remainder" we have an underground receptacle at the end of the block with card access. It's kind of strange to have "remainder" and recycling collected differently.

My block is served by underground garbage and cardboard cycling. Card access would be nice, because right now it's heavily abused. My understanding is that it's paid for by the local businesses and for their/the blocks use (I know at least my landlord pays for it). I can watch it throughout the day and night, and probably 50+ vehicles pull up each day to dump garbage - business vehicles, personal vehicles, work vans... The most frustrating part is how many of them dump their garbage outside of the underground bins when they aren't even close to full, meaning the waste management workers have to manually pick it all up and causes garbage to blow around my neighbourhood.

Does the Netherlands not charge for excessive waste like we do here? How do they keep track of that if many/most people are served by underground bins? I suppose the cards could keep track of weight added to the bins, if they are advanced enough?

As far as I can tell, they do not charge based on how much you throw out. Since they are not billing for usage I don't understand the need for the (no doubt expensive) card system, since all residents can use the bins illegal dumping is effectively impossible. Perhaps the plan, long term, is to bill for usage.

I don't think the bin would need to weigh the garbage, they could simply bill based on the number of "swipes" you do...this isn't meaningfully different than KW charging for the number of bags you have (you can fill bags more or less, same as you can dump more or less in one swipe).

They do seem to have central bins for recycling and greenbins at larger apartment buildings and ironically, those bins are not locked.

Again, it's weird to have both a centralized bin for collection (for garbage) and also individual container collection (for recycling and green bin), but I think the centralized collection doesn't scale well to many types of sorted containers. Requiring bins to be moved to an accessible location is a reasonable efficiency improvement as well as a way of removing the "this road must be wide enough for a garbage truck" justification for dangerous roads.

I lived in a large townhouse complex once which had weekly garbage collection from a central location, and it sucked. Carrying a week's worth of waste a several minute walk away (garbage was taken out in bags), sometimes making multiple trips. And good luck getting your recycling and compost bin back from the hundred others in your shared pickup location.

Why do you let your garbage pile up for a week? I take a bag to the bin maybe 2-3 times a week. In fact, it's the main benefit--I don't have to store garbage in my home. Also, how far away was the bin? I live in a "large" complex as well, but the very farthest anyone would ever have to walk is <200 meters or around 2 minutes.