We don't have bears here, but we do have raccoons, who are incredibly ingenious. I used to have the green food waste bin, with it's "tamper proof" latch, on the back porch. Very regularly indeed the local raccoons would break in and redistribute the contents.

Now I have a little shed-like thing (only the one, not two like Oink).

This mostly defeats the bastards.

Garbage collection here is once every two weeks.

One truck comes for:
Green wheelie bin containing compostables.
One black bag with real, non-recyclable garbage.
Up to three clear bags for additional, non-recyclable garbage.

Another truck comes for:
Blue bags containing paper/cardboard.
Blue bags containing plastic items and some other things (e.g. aluminium items such as foil, cans etc).

If you put the wrong things in a bag or use an incorrectly coloured bag (e.g. because you ran out of the correct colour), they slap a sticker on the bag telling you so and don't bother collecting it. Which can be annoying.

There are also a couple of recycle places downtown where empties, old electronics, quantities of metal etc can be taken in exchange for cash.

Ours in Oakville is pretty similar to Novocastrian's. Green bin for kitchen waste (including meat scraps, bones, etc as well as any more 'traditional' compostables that don't go in the garden composter), blue boxes for hard recyclables - paper, card, plastics, cans, non-returnable bottles, etc. Both collected once a week. FOrtnightly collection of black bags for actual garbage, and brown paper sacks of yard waste. Bulky items collected from kerbside once every six weeks or so, if they haven't been scavenged overnight first. It's pretty efficient: our family of 5 produces 3 or 4 black bags of garbage every fortnight, of which 1 or 2 are diapers (like AX, we're not green enough to bother with reusable ones).

Halton region has a well managed waste processing and reclamation facility (i.e. recycling, municipal composting, and landfill). There was a piece in the local paper the other day about its ever-extending lifespan: originally commissioned in 1992 with a life expectancy of 20 years, more and more landfill diversion of green waste and recyclables extended its lifespan first to 2023 and now to 2040, despite the region's population almost doubling in that time span. And they run an "open week" when we can go and shovel up as much compost/organic mulch as we need every spring, for the price of a donation to the local food bank.

Burnaby is same as Van - and we get bears and coyotes (esp. burnaby mtn).

We put all our food scraps in yard waste bin. Like Van we get fined if we don't recycle properly.

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to work out the multiple quotes bit, but...the lady over the road has a tamper proof bin, but seem to regularly manage to trap a raccoon, and has had many mornings when she has had a good and cross one trapped! I brought an incredibly expensive bin with me (as I was not going to leave it) and it seems to have defeated them, it has four wheels a bit like a Dyson, so it seems to roll all over the garden. Every day it's in a new place so the raccoons are evidently trying...As is my Cairn Terrier, but that's quite another story.

My husband used to live somewhere with that system, and they had a number of problems with polar bears and he was there for years...but again it seems to work well as people are responsible for their own waste and deal with it accordingly.

To my great chagrin, I can sing songs about waste recycling, as the kids were so steeped in the necessity of it...trust me I promise not to give voice, if you pay me well!

I want chickens here (just three, and I have to buy a licence!)...I brought my own purple Eglu Cube by Omlet, so I shall get rid of my edible waste that way...maybe I shall only have to drink wine that comes in plastic bottles or make my own!

Hamilton has 2 blue boxes, one for paper and cardboard and one for plastics, glass and other recyclable items; a green bin for biodegradable items and we are permitted 1 black bin bag or 1 garbage bin for general garbage per week. Once every 2 months we are permitted to put out 3 black bin bags (on a specific week), at Christmas we are also permitted extra. Garden waste - clippings, leaves etc., go into brown paper bags for collection. Large items can be left at the curbside between May and September for collection by prior arrangement. Christmas tree's can be put out after Christmas for collection.

If you put anything in a blue box that doesn't belong then they leave the box in situ complete with contents with a sticker attached.

One thing I really don't understand - why isn't wrapping paper (i.e. Christmas/Birthday wrapping paper) allowed to be recycled? We have to put it in the garbage!

Yup Van City proper !

hmmm, no garbage collection here.

everything gets thrown into the back of the truck and dumped in various sections of the local tip - ie metal in one bits, plastic in another, empty oil and paint cans in another bit etc etc. The rest (ie household stuff) get chucked in a big hole in the ground which includes glass.

I'm too lazy to get on the bandwagon of recyling everything that I touch, the kitchen wouldn't be big enough for the amount of boxes you'd need and I certainly can't be arsed to be washing out jam jars and yoghurt pots when I can just throw them in the bin.

That's usually only the foil type wrapping paper. We have the same rule but if it's the paper wrapping paper it's OK.

Frankly, that's justa piss poor attitude.

Toronto takes it fairly seriously. Black bin for general garbage, blue bin for all recyclables, green bin for compostables. No boxes of the type I used to have in the UK though for some reason. Blue and black bins are picked up alternate weeks, green ones weekly.

You sound like my dad

Your dad's probably a very wise man

The blue bins are for recycling of plastics, newspapers etc and are collected separately from normal garbage. Beer bottles etc can be put here too or taken to the recycling centers on the north and south sides to get cash back.

Did you ever watch Harry Enfield? Remember the "You don't wanna do it like that" character ................ ?