Hi, Tom,
A lesson in dialect, Doug, for when you should visit.
Bins - receptacles for all sorts including garbage (rubbish); hence 'garbage bin' or 'rubbish bin'or just 'bin'. As in "put it in the bin".
Rubbish bins with wheels are called 'Wheelie Bin'obviously.
Red lidded wheelie bins are for general biodegradable rubbish (household) and the yellow lidded bins are for recyclable material (glass, metal, paper)
Wheelie bins are also favoured by teens for racing at night and for disposing of cats (bin usually filled with water first). Either colour lid will do.
The bins are collected twice weekly except for the yellow lidded which are collected every second Thursday.
The collector of such rubbish drives a big white truck. He's called a bin man and takes the rubbish to a 'Tip' where the rubbish is stockpiled, composted and sorted. Methane is collected from the composting site and used to fuel generators. The electricity is diverted into the main grid and into our homes where we will make more rubbish and continue the cycle: hence the term 'recycle'.
Thank you for all that. I knew some of it, but that is very thorough.
Here "garbage" is almost universally used to mean the domestic stuff that typically includes orange peels, coffee grounds, and paper towels from the kitchen. In most parts of Alamogordo, including our house, it is put in large bins in the alley behind the house - ours has a capacity of 450 gallons - and collected there twice a week.
But the taxonomy for the rest of the disposable material varies by city. Traditionally, "trash" meant the other household stuff (like old nails, obsolete hairbrushes, broken hand tools, and the like.) Here in Alamogordo that is put out with the garbage, but in many cities it is the subject of a separate, less-frequent collection. But here in Alamogordo, if I have a large item of "trash" (maybe a broken chair, or an old piece of wall paneling), that is set out in front of the house and you call the disposal contractor to find out what day and to have them be sure and come by. And it is spoken of as "bulk pickup material".
"Recyclable" material is another matter. Here in Alamogordo we have no pickup of such, and if you want to dispose of it properly you go to one of several stations and toss it into one of several large truckable bins. But in many cities, it is picked up on an established schedule in special containers (you would call them bins, and most are in fact wheelies).
One thing that has retarded the development of an overall climate of recycling here is that, although in theory the city sells what is collected (most electric power is not generated by government entities so it can't get directly into that stream). But in general, the economic structure doesn't yet work well, so in many cities the homeowner was charged extra by the city for participating in the recycling program, so most citizens just said "screw it" and kept putting their tin cans and old newspapers in the garbage.
Best regards,
Doug