The garbage strike of 2025 is over. But the garbage pileup — in our homes, on our curbs, in landfills, in my basement — continues.

Americans produce, on average, 4.5 pounds of trash per day — three times the global average. Philadelphians make 1.5 million tons of trash a year (one ton per resident) and recycle only 13 percent of what they throw away (also, if Philly follows national trends, a lot of our recycling, including an estimated 95 percent of plastics, ends up in landfills or incinerators).

Yes, we need to hold corporations, builders, car manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, dairy and pig farms and, importantly, lax legislators, to account for their part in creating most of our pollution. But we Philadelphians can all lighten our own garbage loads, too.

Here are some ways to do that:

Click before you trash

The new search engine resourcePhilly promises to answer all your “What do I do with … ?” questions in a few clicks. It’s a waste-not game-changer.

Get a garbage disposal: Not everything can go into your sink’s garbage disposal — no oil or grease, no coffee grounds, no shells, no husks, no artichokes, no vast amounts of anything, no non-food products — but a lot can, which reduces the 206 million pounds of food we toss out annually. Consumer Reports has a handy do and don’t put in the disposal list. Cost: From $85.

Compost

Composting keeps food out of the garbage and puts to it productive use — as soil or animal feed. Composting requires a bit of storage effort. If you live in the City and want to compost, you’ll have to pay a compost pickup service, buy a composting device, or down-and-dirty DIY — with worms.

Hire a service: Philly’s two biggest residential services are Circle Compost and Bennett Compost. Both give you an odorless bucket to store your food scraps (and a few other things, like brown paper), and offer weekly pickups. Both are similarly priced. Cost: Depends on the size of your bucket. Starts around $18 / month.

Buy a Mill: The famous Mill food recycler — and its lower-priced copycats — lets you make and, if you chose, use, your own compost for soil or chicken feed — and is entirely odorless. Downside: You can’t compost large bones, shells, lots of oil or sugar, uncut husks or artichokes, plants, or flowers. Cost: $999 or $35 per month (copycats around half that price).

DIY compost: Traditional compost requires outdoor space. For the rest of us, there’s … vermicompost, where once a week, you feed your food scraps … earthworms who live in a pleasantly unsmelly, definitely fascinating, ready-made or DIY set-up. The result: The worms eat it, digest it, and leave casings — poop— amazing, nutrient-rich soil.

Plymouth Meeting-based Urban Worm Company sells composters and worms. Spring Grove, PA-based Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm has a large selection. And, for the ambitious EPA has DIY instructions. Cost: DIY for $75. Ready-to-go system for $125 to $175 and up.

City Recycle

Curbside recycling

All Philadelphia residents are entitled to a blue recycling bin. Recycling takes place on your regular trash pick-up day. Things to recycle: Cardboard and paper, aluminum and empty metal containers, paper cartons (for milk, etc.).

In theory, the City (via their contract with Waste Management) also recycles plastic (numbers 2, 1 and 5) and glass. But, because other countries no longer accept our plastic, and because glass breaks in City recycling trucks, Waste Management often diverts these items to landfills or send to the incinerator. Cost: Free.

Dropoff recycling

Want to recycle faster? You can take it to one of the City’s six “sanitation convenience centers,” which also accept once-a-day deliveries of unwanted household appliances, couches, tires, lightbulbs — these get trashed, not recycled. Cost: Free.

Recycle-to-order

Our taxes pay Waste Management (WM) $50 million a year to get rid of our trash and recyclables. Only, many experts (and everyday folks) have serious doubts that the stuff we toss into our blue bins actually gets recycled. If we want to be sure, you’ll have to hire outside companies to dispose of unwanteds in environmentally-friendly ways:

Glass: Bottle Underground has saved tons and tons of glass from landfills through reuse and recycling into new glass. You can drop off clean glass bottles and jars — by appointment only — to their location in the Bok Building, or sign up for monthly residential collection (which they pick up via e-bike). Cost: By-appointment dropoff free. $25 one-time setup fee; $20 per month

Craft and building supplies: A local scenic painter for film and TV founded Olde Kensington’s The Resource Exchange in 2009 precisely to recirculate all manner of makers’ materials, from watercolors to mannequins, buttons to lumber, into the creative economy. Chances are, if it’s in pretty good shape and you can use it to make something else, they’ll take it off your hands. Cost: Free.

Textiles and electronics: As much as we love a good thrift shop, once you unload your piles, there’s not much of a guarantee where they’ll end up. A surer solution: Bag it up, make an appointment, put it outside, and let Retrievr pick up old clothing and electronics. Cost: $12 per visit

Textiles, electronics, and almost everything else: Rabbit Recycling collects almost anything you can think of to get rid of: all manner of plastics, styrofoam, textiles, art supplies, furniture, electronics, yoga mats, batteries, lightbulbs, toothpaste tubes … (There are some exceptions: Their collection list is specific; they don’t want your absolute garbage; your stuff must be really clean.) Cost: From $29 per month

Shop better

Then, there’s the issue of the stuff you buy, which turns into trash. You have options.

Reuse: Almost anything nonperishable that you need most likely already exists. Join your neighborhood Buy Nothing group to give away and get objects you need.

Into high-ish-end fashion? Sign up for a subscription service, and pick out pieces to wear each month, then return Two popular ones: Rent the Runway (for four pieces per month) and locally-based Urban Outfitters’ Nuuly, for six items. Cost: Rent the Runway: $89 per month; Nuuly: $98 per month.

Got kids? Try out Unless Kids, a “product cycling platform” that lets you get rid of toys they’ve outgrown, and purchase gently used, deeply discounted, age-appropriate toys to keep or return. Cost: $12.50 for a “declutter toy chest.” From $1.50 per toy.

Thrift: Philly’s busting with independent thrift and vintage stores. Shop them. Or, shop from the comfort of home, via Craigslist (still exists), Mercari, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and all the other social media platforms.

Don’t replace. Refill: Ray’s Reusables in Fishtown and Good Buy Supply in East Passyunk (South Philly) refill all manner of bath, beauty, kitchen and cleaning supplies — in soap, powder and pod form — with bulk-type pricing to boot. (Shoppers BYO container or buy containers onsite.)

Buy compostable: You still need somewhere to put your now-minimal garbage. The above shops (and other markets) sell trash, liner, pet poo, and, importantly, storage bags that are reusable or authentically biodegradable.

Get help: Once again, highly recommend finding all of this info and more at resourcePhilly.org.

MORE SOLUTIONS TO OUR TRASH AND LITTER CRISIS