In my Silicon Valley town, each house has 1 big black "Toter" (http://tinyurl.com/bgbb5 ) for general trash; 1 big green toter for compostables; and 1 double-lidded toter that holds newspapers on one side and aluminum and plastic containers on the other. We used to use stackable plastic crates to sort the recycling; they switched us to the toters several years ago. Nobody has more than one toter of each type, and not everyone puts out every toter every week--we sometimes take a week or two to fill up the compostable and/or recyclable toter. In my town, we're allowed to put out extra cans of trash at no charge, but some nearby cities charge a lot extra if you need to do that.
Oh, we have another garbage-related custom that might be useful for you: We call it "Big Garbage Month." Twice a year, there's a month during which the garbage company will pick up old furniture, electronics, and other big things that don't fit in the toter. Of course, a lot of that stuff gets picked up off the street before the truck arrives. Other times of year, you have to take it to the SMART station (new, fancy dump) and pay a fee to get rid of it. Anyway, if it just happens to be "Big Garbage Month" when Xander is trying to hide, he'd have a lot more options.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-09-22 02:30 pm (UTC)) for general trash; 1 big green toter for compostables; and 1 double-lidded toter that holds newspapers on one side and aluminum and plastic containers on the other. We used to use stackable plastic crates to sort the recycling; they switched us to the toters several years ago. Nobody has more than one toter of each type, and not everyone puts out every toter every week--we sometimes take a week or two to fill up the compostable and/or recyclable toter. In my town, we're allowed to put out extra cans of trash at no charge, but some nearby cities charge a lot extra if you need to do that.
Oh, we have another garbage-related custom that might be useful for you: We call it "Big Garbage Month." Twice a year, there's a month during which the garbage company will pick up old furniture, electronics, and other big things that don't fit in the toter. Of course, a lot of that stuff gets picked up off the street before the truck arrives. Other times of year, you have to take it to the SMART station (new, fancy dump) and pay a fee to get rid of it. Anyway, if it just happens to be "Big Garbage Month" when Xander is trying to hide, he'd have a lot more options.