I still remember the time when one would take out the garbage and then bring the garbage pail back.
Do people in North America remember something like this or were there always disposable trash bags?
Taking Out the Garbage
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Clarissa's Blog 
Huh? People don’t use garbage cans anymore? Just dumping disposable garbage bags by the curb sounds really common if not downright trashy.
In large parts of the country I would think that garbage bags would be regarded as precious gifts by various varmints (esp raccoons for whom the detailed deconstruction of human garbage is endlessly fascinating).
What I mostly remember is putting the bags in a garbage can so the collectors just had to lift the bags out rather than handle the cans.
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“What I mostly remember is putting the bags in a garbage can so the collectors just had to lift the bags out rather than handle the cans.”
Actualy come to think of it that’s what they probably did here back in the eighties and early nineties (before “wheelie bins”).
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Most Americans still put their trash in plastic bags and then carry the trash bags out to to the curb, even in Hollywood.
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That pic involves what Americans would call a trashcan (we call it a bin in Britain). The specific type being what us Brits call a “wheelie bin”. Anyway, it’s hardly like she’s just dumping plastic bags by the side of the road. The only difference between now and the past I can recall in Britain at least is once upon a time we used to have the old cylindrical type of bin which you had to carry, and the refuse collectors would basically have to pick it up and hurl the contents into the back of the truck. Now they have the wheels to help them plus a nifty machine which picks them up and does the hurling for them. Apparently in the past (i.e. before I was born) there were no plastic bags- people just put their rubbish stright into the bin.
Also that tweet… oooh, mean. (And ignoring the fact that the tweeter’s idol is probably little better in the quality-of-music stakes.)
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OK, massive cultural differences.
Plastic bags were a very rare commodity in the USSR. So people put garbage into smallish garbage pails and then carry them to the garbage disposal, empty them, and carry them back.
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When I was growing up, decades ago, my family never bought plastic bags. For garbage, we used the heavy paper sacks that grocery stores loaded groceries in, and tried to avoid putting wet stuff at the bottom of a sack, so it wouldn’t soak through. When the sack was full, someone took it out to a cylindrical metal bin, and as thelyniezian describes, the garbage men picked up the bins and flung the contents into the garbage truck. It was exciting to watch, for a small child.
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We have automated garbage trucks with a one-man crew. Trash cans are issued by the town and have a bracket that a motorized arm off the truck grabs to lift the can and empty it. Then we bring the cans back inside. The driver walks alongside the truck to steer it and operate the mechanical arm, and manually handles any items that don’t fit in the can (extra bags, construction materials, etc.)
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Correction: The driver walks alongside the truck with a remote control to steer it and . . .
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I’ve never seen a remote control. Our garbage truck drivers seem to operate the whole thing from inside the truck.
I’m very unobservant, however, so maybe there are remote controls.
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Here in progressive Arizona, we have mandatory recycling. So each residence has TWO city-supplied trash bins: one to put plastic bags containing non-recyclable material in, and the other to put all recyclable material directly into.
At least we aren’t so “progressive” that we’re required to separate the recyclable items into three or four different bins, like the residents in certain German cities have to.
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We have two as well in Illinois. I find it highly doubtful, though, that somebody does separate my newspapers from glassware at the place where the recyclable garbage ends up. I always wonder if the recyclables just end up at the same place with the regular garbage.
Or am I too suspicious?
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Actually, the recyclables don’t end up at the city dump. Your city government makes a PROFIT by selling the separated recycled material to various manufacturers who then “recycle” it into new products.
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Here in my bit of England we the main bin for general waste, a box for glass (used to be cans as well), a bag for paper and another bag for cardboard and plastic (which my sister informs me now takes the cans as well).
Pretty sure I saw one of the men collecting it basically shove it all into the same bit of the same truck, though. Maybe my recollection is way off.
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