So here's some input on plastic bags and timing. Let's say you're leaving for a two-month trip on a Tuesday, and your trash pickup isn't until Thursday. Yes you can give your key to a neighbor so they can go into your house and take your garbage out for you. You can totally do that if you want. But that's only good if a) you have a friendly enough relationship with your neighbor to do that and b) your neighbor is around to do that. If either of these two things is false, you'll need to get that trash out on Tuesday when you leave, or you'll be dealing with trash, plus bugs, plus mold, plus maggots, plus ungodly stench and the need to fumigate, when you get back from your trip.
If you put it out early, you risk being scolded by Community Standards but by the time they get a chance to tell you about it, the trash folks will already have come and taken your trash on trash day.
If you put it out early in plastic bags, you risk the vermin and vultures and crows picking the bags open and strewing trash all over your yard, the yards of your neighbors, and the street.
If you put it out early in a can, you risk the trash guy taking the can along with the garbage. But if they're nice folks and you line the garbage can and tie the bag inside it before you leave, that risk is reduced to nearly zero.
The only downside to the can thing, is that you STILL need a neighbor to move the can back around the back of the house, or under the car port, or wherever is appropriate for that property.
Personally I think the risks vs. rewards on the can are more beneficial to all, than the risks vs. rewards to plastic, in the situation of people just plain not being available on trash day.
|