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Re:An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Serie... by mjn on Thursday July 06, 2017 @05:47PM (#14714227)
Everywhere I've lived in the U.S. has a periodic oversized/miscellaneous waste pickup day where they will pick up almost anything that doesn't go in the normal trash, for free. Well, by free I mean for no existing charge above whatever you might already pay as a waste fee or tax. I'm not sure where you live so it's possible this doesn't exist everywhere though (it might only be a U.S. thing?).

The everything-else waste pickup day will take bulky things that don't go in the normal trash or recycling: ladders, washing machines, couches, desks, lamps, tires, bicycles, sewing machines, etc.

For example, Houston has this kind of everything-else pickup 6 times a year. There's once a month pickup of oversized waste of two kinds. It takes tree-related waste in odd-numbered months, and non-tree-related waste in even-numbered months: https://houstontx.gov/solidwaste/treewaste.html

Re:An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Serie... by EADGBE on Friday July 07, 2017 @09:44AM (#14718241)
Our city handles this twice a year, they work something out with the regular trash people; who otherwise will only take things if they fit inside their robot-operated arm things.

This is also when scrap hunters drive by with their trailers looking for resale items.

Everyone wins.

Re:An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Serie... by ingenuous2 on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:26AM (#14716716)
Small data point, but I've lived all over California and never heard of such a thing.
Re:An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Serie... by mjn on Friday July 07, 2017 @08:20AM (#14717797)
From what I can find online, it seems to be fairly common in California too, at least in the larger cities, though some require you to call to schedule a pickup rather than it being a regularly scheduled day. Usually googling for "[city] bulky item pickup" will find the info, if it exists.

For example, here are the pages for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and San Jose, which all offer the service free of charge: https://www.lacity.org/for-residents/popular-services/bulky-..., https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/bulky-items/, http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-departments/p..., https://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?nid=3649

Re:An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Serie... by zip1234 on Friday July 07, 2017 @09:42AM (#14718227)
Have this near where I live, but wish there was just a place to take it throughout the year. Don't like having to keep stuff around for ages until one of those days comes around.