Answer:
This depends on the city / town that the apartment is located in. Some cities require that residents pay for their own trash and even have specially designed trash bags that you must purchase from the city. The garbage truck will not pick up your trash unless its in the special bags.
So the easiest way to find out the local laws on garbage collection in your town or city is to either go to the website, call or pay a visit to your town / city hall.
If you find that their is no such rule about trash pickup in your town / city then this should be your landlord's responsibility to pay for the trash, as it is with the water bill and common area lighting in and around the apartment building.
However if you are renting a house and not an apartment, then in this case yes, you may be required to pay for trash pickup, water bills, etc...
Also, I would check your lease or rental agreement. If there is not anything in there stating that you have to pay for the trash, then I would simply refuse to pay for it since you are only following your lease and if its not spelled out in your lease to pay for the trash, you legally don't have to.
Hope my answer helps, but it's hard to give you an exact answer without knowing exactly where you live and the trash policy there.
I am in the process of building a new website to help landlords and tenants with landlord / tenant rights, laws, tips, advice, tools, services, etc..
I'm still working on the site right now, but it should be up online soon and I will continue building it up until early 2011. The name of it is Landlord and Tenant Laws which can be found online soon at......
http://www.LandlordAndTenantLaws.com
You can always feel free to email me with any questions you have about landlord and tenant laws through the website, or by emailing me at:
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