Saving on Trash Removal...

I recently started saving almost 30 bucks a month. I discovered the folks who were doing our trash pickup were rummaging through our garbage... Kinda creepy... Especially when one of their employees tells you they have pictures of your family in their house. (Ok... Real creepy.)... So... Yeah... I no longer allow these folks to do trash pickup... In fact... I no longer pay for trash pickup. I built an incinerator in my back yard and I burn the paper and cardboard stuff... The incinerator burns it very cleanly. We recycle our plastics, and we compost our food wastes whenever we can. Anything we can't dispose of gets taken to the dump (Or maybe thrown in the trash can at the gas station up the road. LOL)

I know... this isn't huge savings, but it's 30 bucks back in my pocket that I didn't have before. Its a start.

I'm also looking at the possibility of starting to convert the paper wastes into heat for my house during the winter months. That could prove to be exponentially more money saved.

Many areas now prohibit incinerators. I don't believe you can use them in any of the west coast states (except Alaska?)

Take that first $30 savings, and buy a paper shredder. Dump the shredded paper in your compost pile.
Better to feed your soil microbes than to put more smoke into the air.

I hate it when my neighbors burn their trash. Here whenever it rains a bunch of folks run out to set their burn piles on fire, stinking up the entire valley.

Congrats on saving $30/month! Though I agree that burning is probably not the best choice for paper products. Mulch or compost would be far more ecologically sound.

You mean there are people who actually have trash service?

Haven't seen that since we left the city (going on 20 years now). If we can't compost it, burn it, or recycle it, we save it until we get a pick-up load and then haul it all to the local landfill. Fortunately we only get the equivalent of about 1 standard garbage bag of stuff that has to be discarded every month (sometimes not for two months) so it only means one or two trips a year for us.

I heartily agree about the trash burning neighbors too!!! It seems every time we have a nice day or want to spend a few hours enjoying the stars on a summer night, some idiot decides to burn all his garbage (including tires, plastic, mattresses, whatever!) and we get to smell all that for hours. I have tried to see if anything can be done about it, but here in Missouri the rules only apply if you live in the city limits. Otherwise -- if you want to burn your house down, they don't care unless it burns the neighbor's house in the process.

When I say burn my trash... I mean I burn it. The combustion is truly something to behold. I "engineered" a steel barrel with holes cut in the bottom and a 4 inch diameter smoke stack. It is designed to burn intensely... So intensely in fact that everything is reduced to ash and there really isn't much smoldering going on afterwards. The flames do this really cool cyclonic pattern and it sometimes will even speak to you. The smoke stack output is usually clear.

The stinky smoke everyone is mentioning here comes from smoldering plastic, etc.

Here's my incinerator...
http://streetjesus.blogspot.com/2011/05/diy-55-gallon-drum-incinerator.html

Works for me.

In the future I might try to build one out of concrete and block.

Cheers!

I would agree that composting is an improvement over burning, even if you don't bother to shred it. If you're already composting food, all the better - they go together nicely - yard clippings too! When you're ready to take that up a notch, add some household urine on top a few times a week! If you have a space for 2 piles (or pallet frame bins) you can continually alternate filling and composting, keeping them both a little wet.
When you're ready to take that up another notch, start processing other people's waste too - scraps, leaves, wood chips...we all have a cornucopia of waste around us ready to re-purpose!

Brent Rickenbacker wrote:

Works for me. In the future I might try to build one out of concrete and block.

When you do your next one, you might want to try making a fire clay mix instead of concrete. Concrete will spall after a few hot fires and probably won't work out in the long run.

I made a pretty nifty furnace once for melting bronze by drilling a regular pattern of holes in a large metal trash can then inserting bolts through the holes to hold a network of wire about 1/2 inch away from the inside walls. I plastered the refractory mix against the inside -- incorporating the wires and the ends of the bolts to keep the wet clay from slumping. There was also a 2" hole as an inlet at the bottom for inserting a metal pipe. I could build a charcoal fire inside the furnace and get it hot enough to melt a crucible of bronze by using a vacumn cleaner as a blower (reverse the suction and place the hose at the opening of the pipe at the bottom). Did the lid the same way and installed a hole for inserting the crucible and watching the fire. That thing got HOT! But the metal on the outside was barely warm. I'm sure you could do something along those lines with your 55 gallon drum to make a nice burner for your trash. (I'm thinking about building one myself now that I think about it.) You can get powdered clay and other ingredients to make refractory material at any pottery supply place and mix it yourself. It is surprisingly cheap and easy to do.

As a junk removal business owner, the real costs come from the heavy items. If you can get rid of stuff like old stoves and laundry machines on your own, you'll save yourself a good chunk of change. Unlike many trades workers who charge by the hour, we tend to charge by the load, specifically the weight. It may take us an hour to go through and clean up your home or business with the stuff you want out, but you're not paying for that time (for most business models in the junk removal business). If you can find a junk removal business who works by the hour, consider getting everything tidied up and prepped for their arrival and leave the heavy stuff for them. Just understand what their business model is and adjust accordingly.

Yes, if you can handle getting rid of stuff like gravel, rocks and dirt on your own, that will save you a lot of money. Most people need a junk removal service for bigger, bulkier items like old refrigerators, TV units and mattresses.

Brad
Brad's Junk Removal Vancouver