SimCity 4 > Utilities >  Garbage

Garbage

Your sims put out garage. The more sims, the more garbage. That trash needs to go somewhere; unless you do something about it piles of garbage will appear all over the city.

Landfills are where the garage goes. A landfill is measured in sections of 2 × 2 tiles. It costs §20 per section (§5 per tile) to set up and §5 per section to maintain. Each tile of landfill area can hold up to 300 tons of garage (1200 tons per section).

A landfill must be put next to a street or road for the dump trucks to reach it. It should be put far from inhabited areas. You can put it in industrial areas, which are already dirty. However, it's best to put a landfill somewhere far, where you can easily cut off road access when it becomes full. Once a landfill is cut off, the trash in it slowly decays. In time it will be all gone, and the land can be used again.

If you have a big enough landfill, you can sell the right for other cities to dump their garbage in it. But consider your own city's needs first before you reach out for that extra moolah.

Besides Landfilling

There are two other means of dealing with garbage. Both lighten the load on your landfill.

Recycling Center

Trash is sorted out for useable materials like glass, plastics and aluminum. It lightens landfill use by one-fifth, costs §5000 to build and §350/month to maintain.

Waste-to-Energy Plant

Garbage is burned like coal and oil to spin electrical turbines. This is the worst of all polluters, even dirtier than a coal power plant. It is also prohibitively expensive: §25,000 to build and §1,000 to maintain.

For your small city, just stick to the landfill.

Ordinances

If your landfills are getting too full, there are ways to give them a break.

Paper Waste Reduction Program

This makes businesses and government use less paper — in effect, kind of forces the paperless office. It reduces garbage by ten percent citywide. It's not very popular with businesses, though, for it reduces commercial demand by five percent.
Cost: §20 plus §1 per 200 sims.

Tire Recycling Program

Grinding old tires into playground mulch and mouse pads reduces garbage by three percent citywide.
Cost: §20 plus §1 per 1000 sims.