apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Welcome to the reality that many other cities have had for 20 years or more. You'll find ways to conceal them. Maybe AT would be a good place to post photos of bin concealment solutions.

Bruce-
Boston has had recycling bins for a long time, too. These are just much bigger than the old ones.

I don't really get how they're post-worthy though. They're trash can sized. I assume we'll just keep ours next to the trash can when not on the curb.

Oh the luxury of having your recycling picked up instead of having to go three different places to drop it off. Give me a big blue bin any day.

Cannot wait for the day! I live in Chicago and although some neighborhoods have "curb side" recycling, it hasn't come to my neighborhood yet. I'm still driving to recycle.

a little further south from you ours are green with bright yellow lids.
o man are they hideous looking, though purposeful.
It's post worthy because of the visual invasion of the nieghborhood streetscape, kinda like billboards.

In Milwaukee most people seem to treat them like trash cans. It's annoying, but the convenience of the bin is nice.

When my old house was on a municipal pick-up street, we had dumpsters like this for regular trash. (Recyclables went into open plastic tubs.)

I got a couple of pieces of vinyl fencing (made for screening things like trash or air conditioners) at Lowes, assembled them into an L, and hid the dumpster behind them. (I also got a couple of those pre-poured concrete stepping stones to make a base, since otherwise the bin sat on lawn which was messy in bad weather...) I think we are talking about $25 for everything, here -- maybe a few dollars more. Much more attractive than having the bin just out in the way.

Wish we had such big bins in my city. We only have the tiny, lidless blue crates. I've always thought that the giant trash bin and little recycling bin were a sorry comment on our waste policy.

Hey, I recognize a bunch of those houses! It's the street I live on! And one of them is the house in front of my house! Yes, the bins are giant, and no, I haven't figured out a way to hide mine yet. Since my house is tucked back behind another house, my bin is not visible from the street. I just see it every time I enter or leave my house! I'm hoping to eventually put up a fence and gate at the side of my house so that my dog can play in the yard, and I might have something built to contain the bin and garbage can while I'm doing that. Until then, it will just be a bright reminder to recycle!

I'm occasionally reminded how nice Chicago's alleys are: everyone's garbage and recycling is tucked away behind or beside their building.

knit a bin cozy? p.s.: "discrete" is not a fancy, continental spelling of "discreet."

Those are the same as ours in Denver. We too seemed to have them everywhere at first, but I think it has been nearly a year and they seem to all have found homes in out of site places. I"ve never had the privilege to visit Boston so am unfamiliar with the city, but most central Denver neighborhoods have alleys to tuck the bins in but on collection day they all have to be placed on one side so the trucks that collect them can navigate down the other half.

for a second I thought it was a tardis... ;-)

In downtown Toronto, few people have space in front of their houses to store them. Sadly, the front lawns and porches often start to look like dumps. Some people store their bins in wooden structures ("bin solutions"). Those usually looks not much better - like an ugly plywood box on the front of a small lawn or porch.

In Vancouver, BC, we have blue bins but they are usually not as big as the Chicago ones posted here on AT. People just put them out on recycling days. I have a blue recylcing bag (apartment sized) and love it. It has separate compartments for sorting and I just take it to the recycling room in my building. But I heard Montréal got funky new lightweight recycling bins:
http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/greenlife/archive/2009/06/23/montreal-gets-a-new-recycling-bin.aspx
I quite like the IKEA SORTERA sorting bins for under the sink:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90076364

We have those in Honolulu along with a green one for green waste and an even bigger one for garbage. People are too lazy to put the containers in the garage and my neighborhood now looks like a low-rent ghetto. It's depressing.

Those are actually kindof pretty. I live in Savannah and we recently (finally!) got our first city-wide recycling program. However, our bins are black w/ a bright yellow lid.

I have no idea who thought that would be a good combination -- it looks really tacky and industrial. No real complaints from me, though. I love the convenience and now that its been a few months I really don't even notice them anymore.

Portland, Oregon recently issued everyone two ludicrously large rolling bins, blue for recycling and green for yard debris. No, these are not just "the size of a trash can". We have neither garage nor driveway, and the new bins blocked me from wheeling my bike along the side of the house to the back yard. Solution: Stow the green one next to our neighbor's; and get a smaller blue one from our hauler. A limited number of these were available, depending on the company, but only if you ask -- the option was not publicized.

I agree with you Monroe to a certainn point. Whole yes it is a huge conveience, many cities charge residents for that bin and the labor required to sort and recycle that material. I am okay with paying a little more to have this done for me ad I am aware it certainly isn't done for free in my city.

I live in a lower rent nieghborhood and the bins hanging out loitering all around make it look even worse. sigh.

Out here in Framingham, with the switch to single-stream recycling, they've started giving out large yellow barrels. I find the blue a more appealing color at least.

Here in Roslindale, we live on a big hill and all have retaining walls. So we are stuck with lugging these things up and down stairs every recycling day. To make things worse, my house used to be a 2-family so we got 2 bins! Now we have one "decorating" our front and back walks. I love the concept but wish there was a better way of making it work.

Tacoma went recycling years ago, in the early to mid 90's if I recall and for many years and I don't know if they still do this, but the trash was not comingled, unlike Seattle's which meant it was kept separate through it's entire travel from house to recycling center, so 3 open topped small bins were issued - and the city got new trucks and thus the large lidded rolling bins for trash and my parents stored both in the garage.

Today where my Mom now lives, my old childhood community, she has 3 bins, one is her own garbage and a blue recycling (comingled) bin, both on wheels and there is a green one she shares with her neighbor who also rents one of the 4 duplexes owned by good family friends and she keeps the recycling and garbage bins in her garage.

We've had ours here in West Roxbury for a year now, and you do get used to seeing them. If you don't have that much recycling, you can call and have them deliver a smaller bin (like the old ones) and take the big one away. The seniors have a really hard time with these - one little old lady on our street almost fell over trying to push it to the curb!

We tuck ours at the bottom of the driveway, in our Cape Cod style house with a garage under. You also don't have to put it out every week - only when it gets full.

That's my bin under your headline and it's in the front yard because it too big to fit down the path across the flower garden. I love single stream recycling but I'll be damned if it will crush my beautiful Blue Gentian flowers just before they bloom. For those of you from Boston you can request a pick up of your blue bin and a replacement of Recycle stickers to attach to a normal sized garbage can - Make sure it has a top!!

BTW, in the Boston neighborhoods where single stream recycling has been tested for the past two years recycling has been increased 50-100% with very sporadic "contamination" (garbage in the wrong bin)

Heh, yeah, most downtown Torontonians have not yet figured out how to deal with these ginormous bins.
We have the blue recycling one, a big black one for garbage, and a small green one for compost, and we live in the middle house of three row houses. No backyard/side of house/alley access.
Instead, our front porch (and most of the porches of our neighbours as well) are now devoted to bin storage.
Although one of our neighbours had a good idea - they put a door in the lattice on their front porch, allowing them to store the bins underneath. They do have a high porch and the "one bag" size bins though.

Oh and with a 36 day garbage strike, leaving the house smells lovely.

I love the idea, some of the houses just don't accommodate it well.

Oh, and all three of those bins I mentioned are city issued - you have to use them, or buy yellow tags for your garbage bags- it's a means to reduce household waste (or increase dumping).