CITY UTILITIES
Tip #3 -- Garbage Disposal & Recycling

Your city will need to dispose of the garbage it produces.  The easiest and least expensive way to do this is to zone a landfill.  You will need a road so that Sims can take their garbage to the dump.

Landfills create pollution (mainly water pollution), so you will want them far away from your water systems and the developed areas of your city.

You can also use Incinerators, or Waste-to-Energy Incinerators.  These will create air pollution, especially the basic Incinerators.

If you do not have enough garbage disposal facilities, garbage will begin to pile up in the streets, causing traffic problems and pollution problems.  This will quickly bring your city down to a ghost town.

Recycling Centers reduce the amount of garbage that you have to place in the landfill or incinerator, so they are a great investment.  As your city grows, you will need more recycling centers. Use the [Query] to see if you have enough recycling centers.  If the capacity is "Inadequate", then you need to build more.

Incinerators, Waste-to-Energy Incinerators, and Recycling Centers have a limited life (usually about 50 years).  As they get older they will have less capacity, and eventually they will self-destruct.  If you're not paying attention, you can quickly run short on garbage processing facilities.  You can [Query] these items individually to see how old they are, and what their capacity is.

Also use the [Meet] [Environmental Advisor] to see how you are doing.  She will let you know if you need to improve your garbage disposal, but she may not tell you until it's a big problem.

TIP -- You processing facilities are worth up to 5 points on the Judges Scoring (item City Layout #7).  To get full points, you must have at least TWO forms of garbage disposal (e.g. landfill and incinerator) and your Recycling Centers must have a rating of "Adequate".

TIP -- The layout and type of garbage processing will affect the pollution levels in the city.  Low pollution is worth 5 points on the Judges Scoring (item Energy #3) and worth 2 points on the Computer Score Sheet (item #9).