content: Ever wonder what to do if you have lots of extra garbage or recyclables and either can't fit them all in your bins or missed bulk trash pickup day? Alternatively, are you looking for something just a little bit different to do on a lazy summer day? \n\nOk, ok, all kidding aside - you may find yourselves (as we did yesterday) with more broken-down boxes and odd-shaped trash (old floor lamps, etc.) than can fit in your bins. This waste facility allows Phoenix residents to dump bulk trash and recyclables for free once a month. \n\nTo get to the facility, drive down to 27th Avenue and Buckeye (aka \""No Man's Land\""). When you drive up, you will likely see a long line of commercial vehicles waiting to do their daily or weekly dump. You can bypass this line and go to the R (the sign says something like \""Visitors\""). When I say \""you can,\"" what I mean is that we did without being stopped, so you should be able to as well. According to the city website, we were supposed to have to show a driver's license and recent water bill to be let in, but no one stopped us or asked for proof of anything. \n\nWe drove around and around the facility, following signs that directed us to the visitors' drop-off area, until finally we arrived at a massive pile of garbage. Literally. There were tons of guys in pick-up trucks dumping yard clippings, as well as a few ordinary people, like us, who just wanted their garage to be less cluttered. Warning to the wise - the place stinks (it's filled with garbage, after all) and the ground is wet and a bit slippery. We wore flip-flops (how dumb were we?). If you go, you might want to wear a long-sleeved shirt and some old, crappy tennis shoes you don't give a crap about. \n\nAfter dumping our trash, we looked around for the recycling drop-off. Some random employee sitting out under an umbrella told us that the bins were full and that we should just dump our massive pile of cardboard boxes into the trash pile (real ringing endorsement for city-sponsored recycling, huh?). I told him that we didn't want to just trash all that recyclable material, so he suggested going over by the employee trailers and dumping it in their recycling bin. So we did. \n\nI have to admit that after coming all the way to a city facility dedicated to proper recycling, we felt a bit odd dumping all these boxes in a tiny bin that wasn't much bigger than our bin at home. We felt as if we had gone to a public swimming pool and found it to be the same size as our inflatable one. We also wondered if the boxes would even get recycled. Fortunately, a guy in a city truck showed up towards the end of our unloading, gave us the thumbs up, and waited for us to be done so he could unload the bin and take the materials to wherever recyclables go to die and be reborn as new, environmentally-friendly objects. \n\nOur trip to this facility was an adventure, that's for sure. In addition to (or in spite of?) the educational benefits of seeing the inner workings of the city's solid waste operations and the entertainment value of all of those unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells, we got to rid ourselves of the massive piles of trash and boxes left over from our move and early home improvement projects in one fell swoop. Can't beat that!