Emanuel to ask residents to pay $9.50 monthly Chicago garbage bill?

[Art_from_Ark]

76. My city in Japan has a good system for trash pick-up

We pay a nominal fee for trash bags (20-, 30- and 40-liters) to hold burnable garbage (papers and some plastics). Ten 20L bags sell for around the equivalent of 75 cents, and for me they last more than a month since trash pick-up for burnable garbage is twice a week and there are times when it takes me a full week to fill up one bag. This garbage is burned at a co-generator, which helps to produce electricity.

On other days, there are special collections for recyclables, like cans and glass and PET(E) bottles, as well as newspapers and cardboard boxes, and the city makes money by selling that stuff to recyclers. There are even signs at some collection sites reminding people that once recyclables are deposited at the collection site, they become the city's property, and unauthorized removal is considered to be theft.

Stuff that can't be burned or recycled is collected once every 2 weeks. If it's too big (like a bicycle, washing machine or chest of drawers), special arrangements have to be made to have it picked up (for a fee).

There are also trucks that drive through city streets that offer to carry away such "oversized garbage", as well as computers and other electronics for possible "urban mining". There is already technology for recovering gold from cell phones, and a special facilty at an abandoned mine can recover up to 10 kilograms, or 322 troy ounces, of gold, from 300,000 discarded cell phones.