cathyg

Peter_in_Hungary

This sounds like the scrap yard at Veszprem. It is an official scrapyard (I think any other official yard will have the same procedure) as far as I can remember you need your ID, address card and tax number card. You get a proper receipt with an amount of income tax deducted. This was introduced so that the 'unofficial' scrap merchants (typically but not exclusively an ethnic minority) paid some tax on their unofficial business.

cathyg

Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella

Our village just has chucking out scrap & stuff day once a year - that's when we would get rid of an old washing machine etc without any of the hassle of taking it to a scrapyard. Other times I've seen neighbours just put good stuff out with a note to pls help yourself and it disappears within hours for

enter

Put anything metal outside your house and it will disappear quickly

Szeged

You should also check with your local council - when I first bought our Szeged flat my HU wife (then girlfriend) drove me to the local council dumping ground (looked a bit like a quarry the dustbin men would use) whereby I did not bring any id whatsoever. I did not even know where we were going to honest! We were that busy with the reno, I just thought we might be going to obi or somewhere.

Anyway. We got to the gate of the dumping ground where only I was asked for id.....We would of been turned around if it wasn't for my HU wife saying something pleasant in Hungarian! whereby the guard suddenly opened the gate and gave us instructions on which part (zone) of the quarry to drive into. I also received a paper saying the equivalent of "you have use x amount of your 'one-off new home owner' allowance..... That paper had weight description, content (in my case, old paint pot not quite empty, carpet, broken cooker, etc), quarry zone, etc. In the quarry area (zone) a man was overlooking what we dropped off and explained paint goes in that lorry container, metals in the other container and so on.

In Szeged we also have a yearly "clear out" whereby the council will take virtually anything and everything. However, the poorer people usually take most of it before the council even around days later. Its almost as if the council purposely wait a few days for the poorer people to play swap-shop.

wolfi

That "clear out" we call lim-lom (official name is something like lomtanalas) and yes, gypsies and others drive around all day looking for stuff to reuse like old bicycles, metal in general etc.
Our Mayor sends everybody a letter in which he asks not to put out the stuff too early - people will come, have a look at it and make a mess out of it ...
Scrap metal is collected a few days before that - the village makes money with it.
A bit OT:
Some years ago we put stuff into a tv-cardboard box. You should have seen how many cars stopped - usually a guy was driving and his wife got out, had a look at the box and shook her head, no tv in that box.
Also when there was Lim-Lom in some Austrian town you would see them on their way back with lots of stuff on their trailers - not a bad idea to recycle old bicycles etc. ...

Peter_in_Hungary

Everywhere there is an annual 'rubbish event' where anything except building rubbish is taken. It is the annual opportunity to get rid of the unwanted furniture, fridges and alike. In our village the 'jobs worth' overseers won't allow old windows - but if you break them up into bits of painted wood - that's OK. The problem is that you have to store the stuff until the date comes around, perhaps difficult if all you have is an urban garden or SWMBO wants it gone yesterday.

PaulinEger

They stopped the annual rubbish collection around here a couple of years ago. There were too may problems with gypsies laying claim to skips and piles of unwanted goods, leaving family members to guard them so that no-one else could remove anything.
Last year we had some rubbish to get rid of and went to our local hivatal but they had no idea how to dispose of it :/ I work for the deputy mayor of Eger so asked him. He told me of the local council tip/recycling centre, much like the ones in Britain. I went along and off-loaded the tyres on the tyre pile and then asked the guy working there where to drop the other stuff. He said that I need to pay and should have brought a cheque with me. I questioned this and told him I would dump the rubbish in the forest then (I wouldn't) so he begrudgingly took it from me. I later asked the deputy mayor and he was astounded that I was told that I should pay and said that the service is free.

duztee

My 7 year old God daughter collects all the discarded alloy drinks cans that she finds walking to and from school.
Then after 4 to 6 weeks we take them all to the scrap merchant, like Cathy our man weighs the pickup loaded and unloaded and pays on difference. But the weighbridge is graduated in 10 kg increments but fair do's to the man he always pays her to the higher weight, probably as a kindness for her cleaning up operation.
Her efforts get her between 500 and 700 forints each time, not much but it buys her a McD happy meal so she is happy and the streets are a little tidier.
The sale is put in her mothers name (Tax number).

As said above, leave anything outside your boundary and it will disappear. One of my neighbours died a couple of weeks ago, the kids cleared out the house and stacked a truck load of stuff out on the pavement, most disappeared overnight and by the end of the week there were only a few scraps left to put in the rubbish bin.

wolfi

Duztee, very good for your God Daughter - and the environment!
The way her fellow Hungarians handle scrap/garbage/rubbish/trash is one of the pet peeves of my wife.
Just to show what can be done we regularly bring Aluminim cans to the machine at the Interspar - 2 Forint per can, but we show that it can be done.
I have a story there:
Some time ago I came to the machine and there were two guys (homeless or whatever) putting hundreds of cans in. When they saw me they offered to let me go first. I looked at them and asked if they would dispose of my cans (and bottles for which you get 25 HUF) too - and keep the money of course.

A bit OT:
In Germany there is a deposit of 25 Cent on one-way plastic bottles - you'll never see them by the road like here obviously.

Pulaski

I am keen recycler (not in Hungary), but I only put paper/cardboard, glass, and permitted plastics in the recycling bin. The cans, both aluminium and steel I accumulate and sell for scrap. The aluminium drink cans I crush and keep in a traditional round dustbin until its full, the steel food cans I take with other scrap steel - appliances, fencing, bedframes and other stuff that seems to accumulate under our sunroom.

I am never going to get rich selling scrap, but if I can fill the back of my pickup with steel I usually come away with about $30/£25, but sometimes more, especially if I have something heavy like iron pipes. I took a stainless steel dishwasher to the scrapyard last week and got $12/£10 for that alone - just 22Kg of stainless steel. .... And another $19/£15 for 180kg of random steel stuff, including the past few months of food cans.

Every visit to the scrapyard means showing my driving licence (de facto ID) and having my photo taken. If I have copper scrap (wire, plumbing, or A/C/ car radiator cores) then they also want a fingerprint. And over $100/£80 requires, by law, that I am paid by cheque; smaller amounts are paid in cash.

FenTiger

Here in the UK you only need to show your "scrapyard" permit to prove you live in the area. I think this encourages fly tipping. My thoughts following this post are I wish my UK neighbours disposed of their rubbish much quicker. One neighbour's garden looks like a scrap yard. The other side in front garden planks of wood with nails sticking out. I should add neighbours fill up their car with junk. It's still there after three months.

wolfi

Fentiger, maybe they're keeping these cars until they can sell them as antiques ...
Here there are also a few Trabants and Ladas standing round in some neighbours' yards - they'll probably be "discarded" when the old people die and the young ones take over.

rickster000

The family members guarding - this also happens where I live in Budapest.