> My local town gives you two free visits to the garbage transfer station per year.
Where I live in Norway the recycling station is open three days a week and I can take stuff there free as often as I like up to 2 000 kg of stuff per year.
It has never occurred to me that there would be a limit on the number of visits. Or have I misunderstood?
Recycling dropoff is normally free in North America. Waste that cannot be recycled is typically charged by weight for the cost of disposal at waste facilities. You can visit either as often as you like, but will pay to have your garbage disposed of. The GP lives in a place where you do not have to pay for non-recyclable waste the first two times you visit per year. This is normally done to encourage people with a large volume of waste from a single cleanup to dispose of waste properly (dumping on vacant land is a big problem in many parts of NA).
Recycling drop-off is not free for me, and neither is having recycling picked up at the house. If I need to drop stuff off at the dump, it's a flat fee per drop-off with a limit of one trailer load per drop-off. Burn barrels are also illegal in Maricopa County, so Amazon boxes just go in the trash.
US here. where I am: Recycling is free, hazardous waste is open a few days a month (also free), appliances are free, and rubbish is measured by weight (they weigh your vehicle on the way in and out). They pay you to take metal.
Without any fee beyond the required annual solid waste bill, my municipality will let me set out up to 20 (!) bags of trash per week with up to 50 lb (!) in them every week. I can throw out two tons of trash per month without having to haul anything anywhere or pay any extra fees.
Clearly this is madness, but it does make it a lot easier to throw shit out than put it in a storage unit.
Trust me, given how many people just accumulate trash because it's expensive, that's an absolutely sane and excellent policy. As a society, we want people to use trash disposal, because the alternative is expensive, painful, and disgusting.
You can literally tell which municipalities in my state have been hoodwinked by the Karens into adopting "pay as you throw". They're the ones where there's trash everywhere.
It's like these people can't think two steps ahead (I'd go so far as to say that's the defining feature of regulatory policy in this state). You just gave people a financial incentive to litter and dump.
Are you serious? Here in NH it's either once or twice a year. I call it "The real Father's Day" and plan to have a couple of podcasts or similar queued up for the wait in line.
I think a lot of us outside the US will go further and simply never visit the US ever again. That certainly applies to me despite having spent quite a lot of time in the US and having ex-colleagues who I regard as friends there.
> The trick to making a good deal is a willingness to walk away.
Not just the willingness but the ability to live without if the salesman doesn't cave in. If you need the car (or other goods) now you might not have that luxury.
No idea if they are still as good but Samsonite used to be astonishingly good luggage and good value too. I still have two suitcases from nearly forty years ago. They are very scuffed but still intact and unbroken having survived very harsh airport luggage handling in out of the way places (literally thrown out of planes onto the tarmac). Mostly I use an IT brand [1] suitcase that is much lighter and was much cheaper but it is also holding up well after fifteen years use. The rubber has worn off two of the wheels though.
I wonder if using pounds exclusively stems from a time when the word ton was potentially ambiguous. In both British Imperial and US Customary one ton means 20 hundredweight (20 cwt) but the hundredweight differs between the two countries, 112 lb in Imperial, 100 lb in US Customary resulting in the US Customary ton being the short ton of 2 000 lb and the Imperial ton being the long ton of 2 240 lb.
Where I live in Norway the recycling station is open three days a week and I can take stuff there free as often as I like up to 2 000 kg of stuff per year.
It has never occurred to me that there would be a limit on the number of visits. Or have I misunderstood?
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