Sanitation Snit
 

i am usually a very sweet, mild person but i just had a very unpleasant phone encounter with the monopoly sanitation dept for sumter county. we are forced to pay $18 per month for our pickup whether here or not, which i understand. but as a single woman i make very little garbage and usually put it out in a small bag from walmart or publix....often it is left at the curb. this weekend i had a big party and since i do not have black plastic bags i used clear recycling bags for the obvious garbage of dirty paper plates, aluminum pans, etc....the one bag that was white from Belk was taken and the other three smelly bags were left on the curb....When i called to ask for a pickup, the man to whom i spoke was rude and rattling off the rules about black or white for garbage and clear for recycling. I guess i am forced to buy those expensive black plastic bags for a tiny amount of garbage and to endure the abuse of ill-mannered employees in Florida's Friendliest Home Town! does anyone else resent this monopoly?

The person you talked to should have better bedside manners. However, rules are rules and the black plastic bags are not that expensive.
Trash haulers are no different here than anywhere else.....the guy that wins the contract hauls the trash! Monopoly?:shrug:

You can resent it all you want, but if you want to have your garbage picked up then you have to do it the way they instruct. Buy the bags and since u don't usually use them normally then they will last you a looonnnggg time for other parties or such in the future.

You perhaps misspelled the second word in the Title of your problem? ;)

(Now I've done it. I've been bad)

That was great. :mademyday:

chax3 - the dollar stores sell the black trash bags and would probably serve you well since you don't need that many of them!

They'll take white bags, too, so you can use the tall trash can white bags which are smaller.

Having clear bags for recycling and black or white bags for trash allow for quicker pick-up on trash day....no trying to determine whether a bag is trash or recyclables.

The white Publix brand bags are under $2.00 for 15 bags. That's not a big investment.

OP: I agree with you in principle----you shouldn't have to pay for service you don't get. Unfortunately, it appears as long as you live here in TV, nothing you can do to change the fact you have to pay for trash pickup even though you are gone for several months.

And to think that some don't care for snowbirds. Without them taxes and fees would be much higher.

And when they come on here and bitch about the snowbirds, we quickly set them straight!

Just do what the trash man asks--black or white for garbage, clear for recycling--make their lives easier so they don't have to guess which is garbage and which is recycling. Picking up and hauling trash is a dirty job and more so in the summer. Yes, we pay for that service, but it is a service. Trash men deserve as much respect and graciousness on our part as we should show to other service people. I often thank people for coming to work that day on the occasions I need to interact with them. The fact that they came to work means my taxes are probably not supporting them on welfare, and they themselves are contributing taxes to pay for other services I enjoy.

Buy the correct bags. It's not a lot to ask.

i thought that we had to have white bags for regular trash, clear bags for recycling, and paper bags for lawn and garden. in my neighborhood i find that everyone uses all sorts of bags and all of the stuff gets collected. i guess some of it depends on the operators of the trash trucks.

As Pooh said, they'll take the black or white for trash, which from my experience can include modest amounts of yard waste. Then the clear for recyclables and you're all set. Not really that bad. :^)

they'll take any bags but clear
 

my experience is that the trash collectors take everything but stuff in the clear recycling bags or cardboard bundled separately, although I think they've left a single flattened cardboard box with a recycling bag on top of it for the recycling truck.

If you have really small amounts of trash, you could also use the grocery store plastic bags or slightly larger bags from any retail store.

It the society in which we live, we all pay for services that we don't get or don't use or don't use very much. How many times have you called the fire dept. for example? Some have used them and were glad that they were available when they were needed, but hopefully most of us will never need their services.

The upside of a system like this is that the services are there for everyone when they are needed. The downside is that we don't have an alternative.
Some municipalities have gone to private collectors and some still require that residents bring their own trash to the dump.

In the cities and towns that have private contractors, some contract one collector for the entire town and some allow residents to have a choice. In those cases, residents are usually allowed one or two bags or a container, provided by the company, full. People pay extra if they have additional trash.

There are positives and negatives to both systems, but there is no excuse for rude behavior on the phone.