If you live in a major city, or even a smaller one, you know there are certain things you need to get by. For instance, you need grocery access, so you’d hope there will be some decent-sized grocery stores nearby. You’ll need water, electricity, and probably internet service as well.
However, you will also need trash and recycling services, and some people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how much those matter. If you’ve never considered this, but you’re going to move to a new city or state, you’ll want to look into it. Excellent trash and recycling services will help you a great deal, while poor service can be a real problem.
We’ll get into a little more detail as to why that is right now.
How Well do Your Local Trash Providers Handle Their Vehicles?
Garbage trucks are a lot bigger and heavier than the average vehicle you’ll encounter on the road. In fact, these trucks are usually 20-30 times heavier than your family car. Because of this, the trash service you choose should only hire drivers who know how to drive these gargantuan vehicles.
You might have a chance to choose your own trash and recycling service if you live in a city with more than one option. Some cities only have one trash and recycling choice that services a particular area, while others have several. You should definitely look into each company’s reviews if you have a few different options.
Once you get your trash and recycling service up and running, though, make a point to watch how the drivers operate the trucks. If they can’t seem to drive them as well as they should be able to, consider going with a different service. If the trucks ever do anything like hit one of your cans, you should immediately look for a better option.
The drivers also need to watch out for other cars, cyclists, pets, and neighborhood children. If they let anything distract them while operating these trucks, make a change.
How Much Does the Service Cost?
Of course, money matters to virtually everyone unless you are independently wealthy. Because of this, you should also look at how much trash and recycling service costs for each company that caters to your area.
If you find that one company costs a lot more, you should attempt to find out why. It might still be worth it to go with them over a different provider if their reviews are much better.
If it seems as though the reviews are no better, but one costs a lot more than another, you should go with the cheaper provider. You can use the money you save for other things, like rent, mortgage payments, groceries, or various streaming services.
How Big Are the Cans the Company Provides?
You may want to look at how big the trash and recycling cans are that the companies in your area provide. Often, the trash can size will be the same. It is the recycling can size that could be dramatically different from one company to another.
It’s strange, but some companies won’t provide you with very large recycling containers. It’s vital to recycle to help the planet and reduce your carbon footprint, yet you’ll find that with many trash companies, the recycling bin they provide is not as large as the trash one. You might also find one company that offers a larger recycling container than the others.
You should go with a company that provides you with a larger recycling container, if at all possible. It’s even more critical to do this because some trash companies only collect recycling every other week, so your recyclable items might pile up in that amount of time.
How is the Customer Service?
You should think about what the customer service is like for each recycling and trash company in your area. You will probably have occasion to deal with them at some point if you have that same company serving you for months or years. When you speak to someone at the company, note whether they are courteous to you or not.
Remember that you’re paying them, so they need to provide a service. You have no obligation to use them, especially if there is more than one trash and recycling company in the area.
If the customer service people are rude, you can always opt-out of using that company and try a competitor. They should be courteous when they speak to you since you’re paying them.
What Kind of a Contract Can You Get?
You may also choose to go with one or another trash and recycling company based on what kind of contract they will offer you. Some companies will let you pay on a month-by-month basis, but most of them will want you to sign up for longer than that. They might let you pay for a quarter of the year at a time, or six months, or twelve.
If you sign up for a six or twelve-month deal with the same company, you can pay in advance if you have the money to do that. This way, you don’t have to worry about that expense for the next six or twelve months.
The only potential problem if you do that is if you find out during that time that your trash service is not satisfactory. Maybe the trash people don’t come as regularly as you’d like them to, and your trash or recycling ends up sitting out there on the curb longer than you would prefer.
If so, you will have to wait until the six months or year is up before you can easily switch to a different company. That’s why it might be better to pay for only a month at a time, or three months if that’s the best the company can do for you.
Consider all these factors carefully when choosing your trash and recycling service.