Waste Disposal

Keep an eye on the Waste Disposal’s info tab to ensure all garbage cans and recycling bins are being collected each day. If not, it may be time to expand coverage with additional trucks.

Sewage isn’t the only germ-spreading nuisance accumulating throughout your city. All buildings output garbage, appearing as garbage cans lining the streets. If you don’t address this problem soon, the number of garbage cans will increase along with ground pollution.

In addition to spreading germs, uncollected garbage also increases the risk of fires, potentially forcing you to expand fire coverage prematurely. Furthermore, garbage also attracts the homeless, making certain buildings less effective. So soon after starting a new city, construct a Garbage Dump to deal with this issue before it gets out of hand.

Later on you can even construct a Recycling Center, reducing the amount of garbage collected while producing alloy, metal, and plastic for use in industry or for pure profit.

The info tab in the Waste Disposal menu displays all the information you need to know about your garbage and recycling services. The top number shows the daily number of garbage cans collected out of the total number of garbage cans in the city.

If every garbage can has been collected by the end of each day, you’re doing a great job. But if there are several cans not being collected each day, expand coverage with more garbage trucks—build additional Garbage Truck Garages at your Garbage Dump.

The same goes for the second number in the info tab showing the number of recycling bins collected daily out of the total number of recycling bins. If some recycling bins are going uncollected each day, field more recycling collection trucks by building additional Recycling Collection Truck Garages at your Recycling Center.

When the Waste Disposal menu is open, you can see the various garbage and recycling collection trucks driving around the city, emptying garbage cans and recycling bins. A blue icon appears above each truck—garbage trucks are marked with a trash can icon and recycling trucks are marked with a recycle icon.

Each truck leaves its respective facility at 6AM each day and begins its work. Monitor the trucks’ movement along narrow two lane streets, as their stop-and-go movement may lead to congestion, with multiple cars lined up behind each truck. If your trucks are causing traffic problems, consider upgrading affected roads with the Road Selector tool.

Garbage Dump

• Cost: 9,000
• Operational Cost: 300 per hour
• Waste Capacity: 70 tons
• Ground Pollution Output: 7,000 ppm/hr
• Description: Sims hate piles of garbage in front of their homes, so dump it all here! Add more garbage trucks to have garbage collected faster.

Unless receiving garbage coverage from a neighboring city, the Garbage Dump is the only way to remove trash accumulating in your city’s streets. Like the Sewage Outflow Pipe, this building accumulates large amounts of ground pollution, so build it a safe distance away from your major population centers.

Building it directly next to the Sewage Outflow Pipe isn’t a bad idea, helping consolidate ground pollution in one area. The Garbage Dump dispatches a single garbage truck at 6AM every day to empty garbage cans. The garbage truck stops at every building in the city, emptying all garbage cans along its route.

The single garbage truck included with this facility is enough to get started, but you’ll need to build additional Garbage Truck Garages to expand coverage as your city grows. You can even volunteer these trucks to collect garbage in neighboring cities.

Eventually the provided Dump Zone will reach capacity, requiring you to place another Dump Zone, connected to the Service Road. Extend the dump’s existing Service Road to place additional Dump Zones. But if you’re tired of accumulating mounds of trash, you could always burn it with the Garbage Incinerator.

This is a very effective way to remove garbage, but it emits an enormous amount of air pollution, similar to a Coal or Oil Power Plant. If you build it, make sure the wind carries the pollution away from your city, otherwise the spread of air pollution will lead to sick Sims.

Modules

Service Road

• Cost: Free
• Operational Cost: None
• Description: Dirt road for garbage trucks to take garbage to dump in Dump Zones…and it smells nasty. Add more Service Roads to give you room to place more Dump Zones.

Garbage Truck Garage

• Cost: 5,000
• Operational Cost: 100 per hour
• Vehicle Capacity: 5 tons
• Maximum Modules: 8 (one comes with base)
• Description: Add another garbage truck to your dump to speed up garbage collection.

Dump Zone

• Cost: Free
• Operational Cost: None
• Waste Capacity: 70 tons
• Ground Pollution Output: 3,500 ppm/hr
• Maximum Modules: 8 (one comes with base)
• Description: Designate more space for garbage dumping. Just avoid people’s backyards, okay?

Garbage Incinerator

• Cost: 25,000
• Operational Cost: 300 per hour
• Garbage Burn Rate: 1.5 tons/hr
• Air Pollution Rate: High
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Burn the garbage away! Air pollution? Nah, nobody cares about that.

Recycling Center

• Cost: 111,000
• Operational Cost: 700 per hour
• Waste Capacity: 20 tons
• Prerequisites:
• Town Hall in the region.
• Town Hall upgraded to a City Hall in the region.
• Department of Utilities in the region.
• Description: Educated Sims will want to recycle. Used alloy, metal, and plastic can be brought here to be reclaimed, to be used or sold on the global market via a Trade Depot. Does not replace the Garbage Dump.

If you have the money to spare, you can significantly reduce the amount of garbage collected by building a Recycling Center. This functions much like the Garbage Dump, dispatching trucks that collect recycling bins filled with alloy, metal, and plastic.

These materials are then processed at the facility and converted into usable alloy, metal, and plastic, which can be sold or used by local industry. Initially the Recycling Plant is equipped with one Plastic Reclamation Line. If you wish to produce alloy and metal, you’ll need to construct Metal and Alloy Reclamation Lines.

Each line comes with one product storage lot, each capable of storing 10 tons of recycled products. The facility comes with one delivery truck which is responsible for delivering the recycled products to local businesses, Great Works sites, or Trade Depots and Ports—recycled products cannot be sold directly from the Recycling Center.

Build additional Reclamation Delivery Truck Garages if any of the product storage lots are full—the facility automatically shuts down if all product storage lots are full. As with garbage collection, build additional Recycling Collection Truck Garages to expand coverage as your city grows. These trucks can also be volunteered to neighboring cities.

The amount of alloy, metal, and plastic generated through recycling is minuscule when compared to the output produced by the Smelting Factory and Oil Refinery, so maintain realistic expectations. The Recycling Center won’t make you much money (if any), but it will reduce the amount of garbage piling up in your Garbage Dump. Plus, recycling makes educated Sims feel good about themselves. Isn’t that enough?

Modules

Alloy Reclamation Line

• Cost: 25,000
• Operational Cost: 400 per hour
• Garbage Burn Rate: 0.1 tons/hr
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Converts reclaimed alloy into usable alloy that your delivery trucks can deliver to Great Works projects, Trade Depots, Trade Ports, or local industry.

Metal Reclamation Line

• Cost: 25,000
• Operational Cost: 400 per hour
• Garbage Burn Rate: 0.1 tons/hr
• Maximum Modules: 4
• Description: Converts reclaimed metal into usable metal that your delivery trucks can deliver to Great Works projects, Trade Depots, Trade Ports, or local industry.

Plastic Reclamation Line

• Cost: 25,000
• Operational Cost: 400 per hour
• Garbage Burn Rate: 0.1 tons/hr
• Maximum Modules: 4 (one comes with base)
• Description: Converts reclaimed plastic into usable plastic that your delivery trucks can deliver to Great Works projects, Trade Depots, Trade Ports, or local industry.

Recycling Collection Truck Garage

• Cost: 3,000
• Operational Cost: 100 per hour
• Vehicle Capacity: 3 tons
• Maximum Modules: 8 (one comes with base)
• Description: Increases your recycling collection rate with an additional truck for collecting raw recycled alloy, metal, or plastic.

Reclamation Delivery Truck Garage

• Cost: 3,000
• Operational Cost: 100 per hour
• Vehicle Capacity: 5 ton
s
• Maximum Modules: 4 (one comes with base)
• Description: Houses a recycling delivery truck for delivering plastics, metals, or alloys that have been reclaimed to businesses that need them.