Brad, the garbage collection business is quite an interesting business in a number of ways. When I lived in the city, the garbage was picked up twice a week. For many years it was the city owned trucks and city employees. They worked a 4/10 plan ( 4 days a week, 10 hours a day), so each crew had two routes; one they ran on Monday and Thursday and the other on Tuesday and Friday). Looked like a great job to me; they had the weekends off and Wednesday off, and for the city, all the garbage trucks were at the garage every Wednesday so any necessary service could be done. But before we moved out of the city, they changed to a private contractor in our neighborhood to see if it was cheaper, but the pickup schedule remained the same.
Then we bought this place way out here in the boondocks; no governmental garbage pickup, but one individual in the business who picks up the garbage once a week for $12 a month, and he's reliable, too; never fails to show up. And of course, except during burn bans during the dry weather in the summer, we can burn trash anytime (and you can burn it even during the burn bans if it's enclosed - my brother built an incinerator at his place, and I made a screen to go on a barrel that meets the requirements). However, a couple of months ago a big company with big packer trucks started working this area. It just so happens that my garbage man (the individual) comes in the afternoon on Wednesday, but the big company truck comes by here that same morning, and I've always set the garbage bags out early in the morning. I don't guess that company hires the brightest bulbs in the house, because that big truck has picked up my garbage every Wednesday morning (including this morning) for the past two months. My garbage man doesn't have anything to pick up by the time he gets here, but I'm still paying him./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif He said they're picking up almost half his route, and that he called them once to let them know and the guy he talked to got smart and sarcastic so he hasn't called back. I guess he's making pretty good money since his workload has dropped off, but he hasn't lost any paying customers./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
MrP (Mike), apparently you're getting twice a week pickup for the same price I get once a week pickup, but I'm happy with my arrangement, since I have a big shop building I can put the bags of garbage in until pickup day.