lol. lol, lol

Well, I opened a bit ago the trash can and it sure would be nice if "they" could do something about that stench in this hot weather. I feel sorry for the trash collectors on Tuesday.

Some years ago, I lifted up the garbage can's lid and the odor was so bad, I upchucked. *That* was a mess. While cleaning up everything, I thought about just what was causing the smell (especially since I was one of those oddballs who scrub the can after pickup). I finally came to the conclusion that the primary offenders were bones, greasy foil and meat scraps. If they didn't go into the trash can, then they couldn't rot and stink. Since that time, I put all potentially oderiferous stuff into a plastic bag and freeze it; put frozen bagful into the can just before the service picks up the trash. Only once have I had stinky-can, and I think that someone put in the bones from a fried chicken a couple days before pickup.

So to eliminate the stinks: after pickup, thoroughly scrub the can & lid. If a smell remains, sprinkle kitty litter or baking soda on the inside bottom of the can. Take a disposable bag (the newspaper size works for me) and clearly label it FROBAGE or whatever to mark that it is frozen garbage. Keep at least one bag in the freezer, and fill as needed. Whole chicken/turkey carcasses fit into those plastic grocery sacks - just be sure to label! Put a reminder note on your calendar or stick to the top of the garbage can lid, so you don't forget to add the frobage bag from the freezer.

WELL....."they" had just gotten in a batch of fresh mussels last Thursday....so I bought them, cooked them and put the stinky shells into the garbage....which won't be picked up until Tuesday morning.
My garbage cans don't have lids. The men who empty them dump lids and all and never retrieve......so I just deal with it and keep the cans in the garage.
Yes....garage stinks!!

Good Ideas! I know it differs from place to place, but we are supposed to put our garbage in a plastic bag that can be closely tied. It makes a difference from just dumping the stuff in all willy-nilly.

"They" (and thank you, whoever you are) opened a county recycle center close by for paper, cardboard, etc. So we started saving a lot of stuff that used to go in the garbage. The amount of cereal box cardboard blew my mind!
Every thing seems to come in little boxes. Cereal, toothpaste, shampoo, this, that, and the other. Good Grief. I swear the stack of cardboard weighs more than the stack of newspaper.

We freeze chicken bones, shrimp shells, "smelly stuff", etc., too, and put them in the trash shortly before Friday's very early pick-up. I have to post notes on kitchen cabinets at eye-level, so I won't forget to take things out of the freezer. However, last week, I didn't get it out in time--before 5 a.m.,-- and we had to keep it--bagged, of course--till this morning. (Our pick-up was also delayed a day b/c of the holiday.) We left the black plastic bag right outside of our garage and I was really afraid it would be pretty awful by today's pick-up, but you know what? Even "kitty poop" -- encased in litter -- didn't smell!I can't quite bring myself to put THAT in the freezer. There, now, hope I haven't completely disgusted everyone!! :>)

We dump the real smelly stuff, like shrimp hulls in the toilet. Sometimes it might take two flushes, but the difference is worth it.

We have a trashy neighbor that at one time decided to not have garbage pick up. They would take it to the dump themselves. The garbage piled up by the back door and in the back of the pickup truck until we seriously thought about calling "them" about it. Eventually, the neighbor must to have decided that the pick-up was worth the price.

Let's face it! We have it! "They" can't do a thing about how it smells.

I think we have the garbage issue taken care of. Put all garbage in a draw string bag, pull tight and place in our covered trash can. The city provides trash cans with the lid firmly attached and the cans are mechanickly grabbed and dumped into the truck.
Several years ago, when we had a heat wave, we received a notice from from the company that recycles our yard clippings, asking us not put any snails in the bin, because the workers objected to the smell of fried snails and half dead snails. The cans get picked up every two weeks.
It was worked out, I pick the snails I can see, the recycle company put grab bars on their trucks, and the snail issue is solved, until the next heat wave.

Lobster shells and shrimp casings all go in the compost pile. Covered with leaves, no smell.
The only smelly stuff that makes it to our trash is meat bones. Everything else likely to make a smell is compostable.

Most days my trash is not that smelly. As most of you I put any meatscraps out on the morning of pick-up. But this week - water rationing, heat and not rinsed and cleaned disposable 4th of July plates and cutlery as well as not washed meat trays, paper cups and alu foil managed to overwhelm even the closed plastic bags (see water rationing). All car washes are closed, NO car washing at home, lawn, tree and bush watering and only vegetable watering allowed.

"They" is an interesting entity that seems to have a great deal of influence on our lives. It could refer to just about any decision making position any one of us could fill making us the "they" we so often refer to but for some one else. Odd how we have influenced others with the things we do over a life time. Food for thought.

I used to put lobster and crab shells out for the critters that might need the calcium....and they might decompose and provide calcium for my gardens.
But "they" ( not the garbage collectors "they") pulled the shells over to their hidey holes and nibbled at them until they were small enough to pull into the holes.
So the garbage now gets graced with the hard calcium rich shells.....critters be damned!

Not a picture of my current flock, but representative of my garbage disposal operation: Peelings, elderly lettuce and other veggies, small meat-scraps (including chicken) and everything else, except citrus, banana-peels and the onion family (they don't eat those things) goes into a "chicken-bag" including crab and shrimp-shells, for the calcium - bonus: I get eggs in return.
Other household trash gets bagged and I put a squirt of bleach into the bag to mask smells because of scavenger dogs, feral cats, ;coons and whatever else passes by.
Recycling goes into a mixed container, and I again rinse dog-food cans and other smelly stuff, dog licks the cat-food cans clean.

This thread brought back memories of my visits to my aunt's farm in Norway. I spent some summers there and when I was there it was my job to help cook for and feed the pigs.
Just about everything edible went into the pig "slop". All vegetable parts, peels, skins, cabbage and apple cores, leafy tops etc...there was also grains and nuts. Everything was saved to feed the pigs. I don't remember any trash anywhere.
There is a teaching farm here in Silicon Valley and the pigs eat little bitty pellets of something or another.

there's one thing that I am fairly sure about..... and that is that "They" never started a thread about smelly garbarge om GardenWeb.

Good grief!!!!

Agnespuffin ~ I'm not too sure about that... as Don indicates, "They" are we, and here we/they be, garbage thread and all.

They shoulda known better.

teehee... running off now

"Smelly garbage" seems to be universal, doesn't it? :?)

I do what lilo does with my chickens. "They" eat all food scraps, other than meat if it's clean, and the other food scraps are compost. Paper, plastic and glass goes to recycling. Bones, and anything else gets double bagged, once in the kitchen can bag and then again in heavy plastic bags I've saved off my empty soil bales. The nastiest stuff is safe in there, no smells and no plastic failures. Probably only generate two thirteen gallon kitchen can bags of rubbish a month. I'll never put a dump out of business. I do remember the days before plastic garbage bags, where in towns the residents just took their 'slop' out and dumped it into the metal cans to bake or freeze. The alleys reeked near a can and the garbage men just turned the cans over and let the gooey messes drip into the truck. Somebody always had to wash maggots out of the cans before they did it all over again. The dump..........LOL.........it was not a landfill. It was literally a dump where piles of garbabe lay on top of each other to decompose if it would. I suppose occasionally a dozer would push it toward a hole. You could smell it half a mile away and folks were welcome to come with their own loads and dump for free. Garbabe pick-up in town didn't cost extra. It came with teh water bills.