I need to remove this broken trash compactor. Does anyone know how to get it out? [more inside]
posted by GregX3 on Nov 1, 2009 - 6 answers

Kitchen trash cans that can withstand a crafty and dextrous cat? [more inside]
posted by alex.dudley on Oct 12, 2009 - 24 answers

I would like to dispose of a thermometer that might contain mercury. What's the best way to do this, in India? [more inside]
posted by bookish on Sep 28, 2009 - 2 answers

I have a broken hair dryer. Can I recycle it? I live in Brighton, UK - I can't find anything on the local council website about recycling this type of item. Do I just bin it? Thanks!
posted by Kirn on Aug 17, 2009 - 3 answers

What important household papers and documents must I keep and file? What papers are OK to throw away? [more inside]
posted by fiercecupcake on Jul 28, 2009 - 7 answers

Some friends and I are starting a super trashy book club, and are looking for suggestions for the trashiest books you can come up with. [more inside]
posted by Astro Zombie on Jul 15, 2009 - 79 answers

Please recommend how I can get rid of trash in Pasadena, CA. [more inside]
posted by onich on Jul 4, 2009 - 13 answers

Are there any downsides to becoming a human garbage disposal? I'm tired of composting and/or throwing out vegetable material. Would there be any seriously ill effects if I just started eating all of the vegetal "waste," i.e. peels, rinds, seeds, myself? What about egg shells?
posted by mrgrimm on May 21, 2009 - 33 answers

In honor of Earth Day, help me find a creative way to encourage my my neighbor to recycle. We have curbside recycling once a week and they never recycle anything. Their trash is an amazing collection of plastic water bottles, aluminum cans and lots and lots of paper. I hate to see all of this stuff go into a landfill when we have recycling and they have so much to be recycled. Can I do anything to gently prod them into maybe recycling? Is it even my business?
posted by Leezie on Apr 22, 2009 - 28 answers

I'm using a Linux eee, and after leaving a couple of torrents on overnight, I wake up to the message that the disk is full. Fair enough, I'll just delete a few things: but when I try to, I get the message that it's unable to create home/user/Trash/xxxxxx, where xxxxxx is some random string of characters. How can I actually free up some space? I don't mind using the terminal or whatever, I've just no idea what I'd type.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot on Apr 3, 2009 - 10 answers

My friend and I are having a bit of a debate: Is litter harmful for the environment, society, or other aspects, as I've been led to believe? Legality is not the issue. [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim on Feb 27, 2009 - 61 answers

I'm looking for a better garbage bag. [more inside]
posted by nax on Feb 26, 2009 - 14 answers

Help me find trash cinema. [more inside]
posted by whiterussian on Jan 16, 2009 - 13 answers

Help me find this grocery bag using trash bin., or something similar, please. I StumbledUpon this link and think it would be an awesome gift for my mother. She doesn't want to use reusable bags because she takes 8-10 empty aluminum cans to the recycle bin every morning along with a bag of cat poop/liter from cleaning the litter box. For convenience she uses two grocery bags a day for the job. If she's going to use bags I figured I may as well make it easy for her.
posted by RunawayOctober on Jan 7, 2009 - 4 answers

Why does this stereo mini to RCA adapter have a obscure image icon that indicates hazardous waste? [more inside]
posted by silsurf on Nov 17, 2008 - 6 answers

What are the words to this Sesame Street Song? - We hear "Everybody loves [something], as sure as [something] loves [something], and googling for lyrics isn't helping fill in the blanks.
posted by Artw on Sep 6, 2008 - 11 answers

How can I determine, with access to limited biological data, if my father is not who I thought he was? [more inside]
posted by anonymous on Jul 5, 2008 - 10 answers

dumb question: when i delete a song from itunes, where does it go? [more inside]
posted by twistofrhyme on Jun 1, 2008 - 7 answers

HomeRenovationFilter: What smaller and more transportable options are there to a roll-off dumpster? [more inside]
posted by ubu on Jan 9, 2008 - 10 answers

My wife is going to kill me. While "fixing" her computer (g5 Macintosh running Leopard), I managed to move 20,000 of her mp3s to the trash. I actually thought I as moving one genre with "select-all", but apparently I moved the entire frickin' library. She doesn't know yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have not yet deleted these files. All 20,000 (well, 19,868) are sitting in the trash can. There's no "restore to previous location" type option, though. Help! Is there anything I can do? Is my only option to have iTunes re-import the entire lot? [more inside]
posted by jdroth on Nov 13, 2007 - 29 answers

Surely I can buy 128 or 64mb SD cards for ridiculously low prices, now that they are so out of date. Right? [more inside]
posted by Squid Voltaire on Oct 24, 2007 - 10 answers

City-living n00b: what do I do with smelly trash on the weekends? [more inside]
posted by olinerd on Sep 15, 2007 - 21 answers

Why would Starbucks throw perfectly good coffee away? [more inside]
posted by bach on Jun 20, 2007 - 26 answers

What household items are hazardous to the environment when thrown away? I'm compiling a list of items that we should recycle or dispose of specially instead of tossing, like batteries and fluorescent light bulbs. [more inside]
posted by Alison on Jun 7, 2007 - 11 answers

OS Xperts: 2 questions related to the trashcan (OS X v. 10.4.9) 1. The trashcan left my finder sidebar. I can find a .trash file to drag over, but its not the same as the original sidebar trashcan. How can I restore the trash to the sidebar? 2. OS X religiously creates trashcan folders for every storage device. On USB keys, this is more trouble than its worth, and causes me to have to empty the entire trashcan to free up space on a USB key I just supposedly deleted everything on. I can't find a Pref panel setting or .plist file that affects file deletion behavior. How can this property (and all trash properties) be modified?
posted by Fupped Duck on Jun 3, 2007 - 6 answers

Two dumpsters of trash. One lost car key. Help me avoid spending $1,600. [more inside]
posted by docgonzo on Mar 26, 2007 - 27 answers

How to dispose of a broken exercise bike (in north New Jersey)? [more inside]
posted by cyrusdogstar on Jan 29, 2007 - 10 answers

How do you succeed academically [or you know, in any manner] when your family doesn't value education? [more inside]
posted by Chorus on Nov 5, 2006 - 35 answers

If you pick up a piece of trash and put it back where you found it, is that littering?
posted by airguitar on Oct 1, 2006 - 30 answers

Quick Idiomatic Spanish Translation - help me make my point. [more inside]
posted by Mr. Blint on Sep 25, 2006 - 8 answers

PortlandFilter: Have you seen the ladies in tiaras picking up trash on the bus mall? [more inside]
posted by ottereroticist on Jul 27, 2006 - 6 answers

Looking for attractive, cheap recycling bin options. Open the lid, because there's [more inside]
posted by nitsuj on Jul 4, 2006 - 9 answers

How do I get my husband to let go of old boxers and socks? [more inside]
posted by chicken nuglet on Jun 14, 2006 - 37 answers

In between trash days -- Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday -- people in neighboring apartments deposit their trash on the first floor landing, outside the door to my apartment. I expected the super to put a stop to this practice but it turns out he condones it. I asked him to fix this and he said he'd try but I'm not sure he will. There are no trash cans or anything, just trash bags piled up. Is this against any NYC codes? How should I proceed?
posted by Aghast. on Jun 14, 2006 - 14 answers

What can I do with a couple hundred pounds of sour oranges? [more inside]
posted by Optimus Chyme on Apr 30, 2006 - 14 answers

Why are some cities dirtier than others? What tactics can a dirty city learn from clean cities, to keep their streets free of litter? [more inside]
posted by edverb on Mar 5, 2006 - 14 answers

Spring cleaning: The prior owner of our house left a lot of paint thinner, paint, turpentine (or is that paint thinner) and just a ton of nasty cleansers in the shed, and I finally want to get rid of it in a safe and clean manner. How? Also: I have a bunch of electronics (monitors, CD players, vacuum cleaner) that I want to recycle. Any tips? If it helps, I am in Seattle (King County).
posted by xmutex on Feb 12, 2006 - 9 answers

In OS X, how do I undelete the file or folder most recently put into the trash? [more inside]
posted by mrkohrea on Feb 5, 2006 - 6 answers

Cleaning out the basement... What do I do with all these useless wires? [more inside]
posted by danblaker on Dec 14, 2005 - 11 answers

Does anyone know any good recycling storage options? [more inside]
posted by Alison on Dec 6, 2005 - 11 answers

Is there a way to destroy a 55 gallon bag of papers easily, inexpensively, quickly, and without setting them on fire?
posted by bigmusic on Nov 25, 2005 - 14 answers

How do I deal with my boyfriend's obnoxious and embarrassing friends? [more inside]
posted by anonymous on Oct 19, 2005 - 43 answers

CigaretteFilter -- Lately I notice a LOT more pig-people throwing cigarette butts and other trash from their car windows. Is it just me noticing? If not, WTF?
posted by ZenMasterThis on Sep 2, 2005 - 24 answers

Crap in a gap: how can I clean out a 6" wide and ~100' long space between two buildings? [more inside]
posted by fandango_matt on Jul 9, 2005 - 29 answers

Have you used 1-800-got-junk, or a similar trash pick-up service? Did you tip? [more inside]
posted by peep on Jun 20, 2005 - 7 answers

My new Powerbook's harddrive is full (93 GB) so I tossed many huge DVD files. Now I can't empty the trash. How do I force it to empty the trash?
posted by Toolshed on Mar 30, 2005 - 8 answers

I work a standard full-time job. How do I keep the amount of rubbish generated from lunch down to something I'm not ashamed of? [Would you like to know more?] [more inside]
posted by krisjohn on Feb 13, 2005 - 9 answers

Can you recycle Teflon/nonstick coated cookware? We've just gotten a whole new set of high-quality stainless and we'd like to get rid of our old nonstick stuff, but don't know if it's actually recyclable. What with all the hubbub lately about Teflon doing nasty nasty things, I'd hate to just put it in the trash and have it kill somebody later on.
posted by 40 Watt on Jan 15, 2005 - 10 answers

Raccoon in a dumpster. Girlfriend's place of employment has raccoons caught in the dumpster like clockwork every Friday (pickup is Thursday night and no amount of effort will get the company to latch it.) She usually puts a board in and lets them climb out at their leisure. One has been sleeping in the corner all day and won't move even when prodded. Is he just being nocturnal, or does he need medical attention? (Animal control hasn't returned her call and she's worried for him).
posted by Mayor Curley on Dec 3, 2004 - 17 answers

TrashTalk: How do I keep animals from getting into my garbage? [more inside]
posted by grateful on Sep 24, 2004 - 10 answers