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> I go through a 64 gallon trash bin a week. That seems absurdly large to me. 64 gallons is 250 litres. We're four and we use about one 30 litres (8 gallons)

> I go through a 64 gallon trash bin a week. That seems absurdly large to me. 64 gallons is 250 litres. We're four and we use about one 30 litres (8 gallons) bag for "rest" trash per week (everything not recyclable, including diapers which take a lot of space, so hopefully soon we can at least halve that trash volume) one 30 litres bag for recyclable plastic/metal every two weeks and maybe one 30 litres bag for compostable stuff (mostly just vegetable and fruit peels from cooking) every two weeks or so. That's about 60 litres or 15 gallons per week for a normal-sized family. I can see some of my neighbours having somewhat larger bags, some with smaller bags, but I feel like we are mostly average for our area (in Belgium). In fact, a quick search tells me that Belgians have produced on average 683 kg of trash per year in 2022, which comes to 13 kg per week per person and seems rather consistent with my numbers.

brnt 3y ago
Check your municipal waste centre. Mine, in Limburg (NL), recycles diapers.
- seszett 3y ago
  Interesting, I wonder how they process them and what they become after recycling. Here in Antwerp diapers are explicitly supposed to be put in the rest[0] though. [0]https://www.antwerpen.be/info/restafval https://www.antwerpen.be/info/restafval
  - brnt 3y ago
    If you search for "luier recycling" you can find out how it's done.
    - seszett 3y ago
      https://nos.nl/artikel/2250937-fabriek-voor-recyclen-poepluiers-komt-er-echt https://nos.nl/artikel/2250937-fabriek-voor-recyclen-poeplui... very interesting, I hope it comes here in the future even though it will be too late for me :)
rolisz 3y ago
Also family of four: we fill a 120l garbage bin per week, to the brim, and a 120l compost bin every two weeks (this one maybe is not full, but it stinks by that time) and a ton of "recyclables" (cardboard, paper, metals, plastics).
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Do you put garden waste (bushes, grass) in the compost bin? Otherwise it feels an order of magnitude off.
- distances 3y ago
  > Also family of four: we fill a 120l garbage bin per week What goes into this since you already recycle bio, cardboard, plastics and metal? My "generic trash" is a 25 liter bag that I empty about once a month or so. Since most things go to the specific recycling containers, the generic waste is dominantly just napkins and tissues that shouldn't go to bio. I don't have kids so no diapers or anything like that, but 120l weekly sounds still a lot after recycling.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  We have a very small compost bin in the kitchen that is frequently (about once a day) emptied into a garbage can with lid in the garage, which is then infrequently dumped into a compost pile. The particular combination of materials going into the garage compost can (like coffee grounds, citrus peels) gives it a spicy rather than putrid odor when the lid is opened.
  - seszett 3y ago
    We put our compost bag in the bottom compartment of the fridge. It doesn't smell or leak there and for especially smelly things, we first wrap them in a smaller compostable bag before putting that in the city-provided bag.
  - wil421 3y ago
    I tired to do a compost last year but I live near a stream and tons of small flying insects infested the compost bin. It would never get hot enough to compost, ants moved in after the flies left in the spring. My climate is hot during the summer but even compost started wouldn’t help. I have lots of kitchen waste, grass waste, and plenty of brown organic matter I can add that’s around my yard. The bugs love it.
dirkf 3y ago
(Fellow country man here!) That still sounds like a lot to be honest. According to the yearly stats we receive from our trash collector: in 2021 our family of 4 produced 27,50kg of non-recyclables. That's not per month or per person but for all of us for the whole year. Granted, no diapers anymore here; that takes quite some space (and weight, which is more important since we pay per kg). We saw a significant drop after they started collecting plastics separately. We have a 120 litre bin that we put to the curb every two months or so. I don't quite understand what people are throwing out all the time that you can fill a large bin every week...
jerf 3y ago
We nominally go through a garbage bin a week... but if you compact it down it isn't anywhere near full. It's just effectively impossible to compact as an end user without special appliances. I think a lot of people make the mistake of looking at a quantity of trash and measuring it by apparent visual volume, but that's not a very useful measure. Mass is a lot closer to a useful number. Many things that visually appear enormous are in fact not that big a deal, many things that visually seem small actually represent a lot of resources.
- asdff 3y ago
  Yeah I am using the visual volume measure here. Its probably 2-4 13 gallon kitchen bags of trash in there usually but that is enough to fill up the 64 gallon bin up to near the lid, sometimes push it up a little. Of course all the data in the literature out there is using weight as their metric, and I have no idea how much weight I am tossing, just a loosely packed volume of trash.
asdff 3y ago
Its a 64 gallon bin but I'm not packing it in either, trash is bagged. I guess I should have figured that based on the reaction in the comments. I'm probably tossing in 2-4 13 gallon tall kitchen bags of trash into there a week and even that much is enough to have it fill up to the top of the lid. I can squeeze in two weeks of trash in there if I forget to put it out for pickup one week but no further.

brnt 3y ago

Check your municipal waste centre. Mine, in Limburg (NL), recycles diapers.

seszett 3y ago
Interesting, I wonder how they process them and what they become after recycling. Here in Antwerp diapers are explicitly supposed to be put in the rest[0] though. [0]https://www.antwerpen.be/info/restafval https://www.antwerpen.be/info/restafval
- brnt 3y ago
  If you search for "luier recycling" you can find out how it's done.
  - seszett 3y ago
    https://nos.nl/artikel/2250937-fabriek-voor-recyclen-poepluiers-komt-er-echt https://nos.nl/artikel/2250937-fabriek-voor-recyclen-poeplui... very interesting, I hope it comes here in the future even though it will be too late for me :)

rolisz 3y ago

Also family of four: we fill a 120l garbage bin per week, to the brim, and a 120l compost bin every two weeks (this one maybe is not full, but it stinks by that time) and a ton of "recyclables" (cardboard, paper, metals, plastics).

rightbyte 3y ago
Do you put garden waste (bushes, grass) in the compost bin? Otherwise it feels an order of magnitude off.
distances 3y ago
> Also family of four: we fill a 120l garbage bin per week What goes into this since you already recycle bio, cardboard, plastics and metal? My "generic trash" is a 25 liter bag that I empty about once a month or so. Since most things go to the specific recycling containers, the generic waste is dominantly just napkins and tissues that shouldn't go to bio. I don't have kids so no diapers or anything like that, but 120l weekly sounds still a lot after recycling.
pfdietz 3y ago
We have a very small compost bin in the kitchen that is frequently (about once a day) emptied into a garbage can with lid in the garage, which is then infrequently dumped into a compost pile. The particular combination of materials going into the garage compost can (like coffee grounds, citrus peels) gives it a spicy rather than putrid odor when the lid is opened.
- seszett 3y ago
  We put our compost bag in the bottom compartment of the fridge. It doesn't smell or leak there and for especially smelly things, we first wrap them in a smaller compostable bag before putting that in the city-provided bag.
- wil421 3y ago
  I tired to do a compost last year but I live near a stream and tons of small flying insects infested the compost bin. It would never get hot enough to compost, ants moved in after the flies left in the spring. My climate is hot during the summer but even compost started wouldn’t help. I have lots of kitchen waste, grass waste, and plenty of brown organic matter I can add that’s around my yard. The bugs love it.

dirkf 3y ago

(Fellow country man here!) That still sounds like a lot to be honest. According to the yearly stats we receive from our trash collector: in 2021 our family of 4 produced 27,50kg of non-recyclables. That's not per month or per person but for all of us for the whole year. Granted, no diapers anymore here; that takes quite some space (and weight, which is more important since we pay per kg). We saw a significant drop after they started collecting plastics separately. We have a 120 litre bin that we put to the curb every two months or so. I don't quite understand what people are throwing out all the time that you can fill a large bin every week...

jerf 3y ago

We nominally go through a garbage bin a week... but if you compact it down it isn't anywhere near full. It's just effectively impossible to compact as an end user without special appliances. I think a lot of people make the mistake of looking at a quantity of trash and measuring it by apparent visual volume, but that's not a very useful measure. Mass is a lot closer to a useful number. Many things that visually appear enormous are in fact not that big a deal, many things that visually seem small actually represent a lot of resources.

asdff 3y ago
Yeah I am using the visual volume measure here. Its probably 2-4 13 gallon kitchen bags of trash in there usually but that is enough to fill up the 64 gallon bin up to near the lid, sometimes push it up a little. Of course all the data in the literature out there is using weight as their metric, and I have no idea how much weight I am tossing, just a loosely packed volume of trash.

asdff 3y ago

Its a 64 gallon bin but I'm not packing it in either, trash is bagged. I guess I should have figured that based on the reaction in the comments. I'm probably tossing in 2-4 13 gallon tall kitchen bags of trash into there a week and even that much is enough to have it fill up to the top of the lid. I can squeeze in two weeks of trash in there if I forget to put it out for pickup one week but no further.