Do you know how much you spend per month on electricity? How about your gas utility? The person who pays the bills in your household probably has a pretty good idea. But do you know how much you spend on garbage?

Each time your city or town sends a truck down your street to pick up your waste, it costs money. It costs money even if you drop your trash off at a local dump. Ultimately, you pay for this service, usually through your local taxes. And it’s not likely that you have much control over the amount you pay, regardless of how much garbage you create.

There is a different system, however, under which residents are asked to pay for waste collection directly—based on the amount of garbage they actually generate. They’re called “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT) programs, and nearly 2,000 communities across the country have begun using them.

PAYT is a different way of paying for waste collection and disposal services. In some communities, it works on a per-container basis: households are charged for each bag or can of waste they generate. A few communities bill residents based on the weight of their trash. Either way, the system motivates people to recycle more and to think about ways to generate less waste in the first place.

For community residents, however, the most important advantage may be the fairness and greater control over costs that it offers. Do you have neighbors that never seem to recycle and always leave out six or seven bags of trash? While you may not have thought about it, right now you’re helping them pay for that waste. Under PAYT, everyone pays only for what they generate—so you won’t have to subsidize your neighbor’s wastefulness any more. It’s only fair. With PAYT, when you recycle and prevent waste, you’re rewarded with a lower trash bill.