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Apartment buildings often have dust flumes in which residents can dispose of their waste in stainless steel waste containers. These chutes usually lead to some large receptacle or waste-disposal complex in the basement.

The wheelie bin is a waste container on wheels designed to make it easier for users to transport heavy loads of refuse to the curb or other pick-up point. George Dempster invented the Dempster-Dumpster system in the 1930s for automatically loading the contents of standardized mobile steel containers onto the dustcart. This led to the classic Dempster Dumpmaster waste collection vehicle of the 1950s, but wheelie bins did not become commonplace until the 1970s. The term dumpster is frequently used as a generic term for a large MGB or the non-mobile variety (known as a skip in the UK or Australia) in the United States. composter
In the US residential wheelie bins are also generically called "Herbie Curbies." The modern bin is a German invention of the 1970s in a patent held by Schneider, and licensed to other companies outside Germany.

The construction industry may recycle concrete and old road surface pavement, selling their waste materials for profit.

In a 2007 article, Michael Munger, chairman of political science at Duke University, wrote that "if recycling is more expensive than using new materials, it can't possibly be efficient.... There is a simple test for determining whether something is a resource... or just garbage... If someone will pay you for the item, it's a resource.... But if you have to pay someone to take the item away,... then the item is garbage."