10 Comments
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curby's avatar

alot of these “transfer stations” charge a fee to drop off items like mattresses…. any where from $5-10 or more. so people don’t want to pay the fee so they sneak down a backroad and dump it. tires are the main thing you see here and here its $2 for a tire.

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Tim McCann's avatar

Here where I live, you call the city before trash day, and they pick it up at your house. .

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it's just Boris's avatar

Here we have regular trash pickup, and a county "eco station" aka transfer station / dump. They can take e-waste, tires, household hazardous & chemicals, motor oil, appliances, yard waste, construction debris, you name it.

County residents get 12 free visits per year, however much and whatever kind you bring; and some categories are "free" e.g. if you're bringing only metal recyclables it doesn't count as a visit. People bring trailers full, no problem as long as stuff goes where it needs to.

And yet, some people still try to find quiet canyons to dump their crap.

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rural counsel's avatar

I would be for a law that says places that sell you stuff have to take back their junk once it breaks or wears out. For free. Kind of like bottle redemption centers have to accept the empties. Give them an incentive to sell stuff that doesn't break so easily or stuff without the early planned obsolesence.

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Blind Archer's avatar

I would even be for an amendment to that law that requires the retailers to charge a deposit on those items, that the buyer gets back when they return the broken/worn out ones, just to encourage people to do it. It doesn't even have to be on that specific item; buy a new mattress, pay the deposit, bring in your old mattress, get the deposit back.

It's not a new idea; states all over already do this with car batteries and alternator cores to recover the heavy metals inside, and some even do it with tires and soda cans - and you don't find many soda cans in the general trash there.

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Sean Valdrow's avatar

With what the dumps charge for mattresses and refrigerators, I can't say as I blame him over much. I burned my last mattress and cut apart the metal spring system. Scrap steel is free to dump here; mattresses 34 dollars.

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Miguel Gonzalez's avatar

No charge for taking the mattresses to the centers.

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Sean Valdrow's avatar

Not in Alaska

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Miguel Gonzalez's avatar

Damn....

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Sean Valdrow's avatar

Yeah...they charge so much for fridges and mattresses, people dump them all over. Ditto grass clippings and leaves. Branches...free. Weird.

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