Every household and business generates a certain amount of garbage. While there are ways to create less waste and recycle more, garbage collectors are an essential service in every city across the world.The simulated cities ofCities: Skylinesare no exception to this rule.
This is why players should stay on top of garbage collection as soon as the service unlocks at 420 population. Health and education unlock at the same time, but these services can wait until garbage is up and running. This is because letting garbage pile up is a good way to anger both residents and businesses, and if it goes on for too long the owners will abandon the building. That’s why it’s important to understand how garbage collection works inCities: Skylinesand what players can do to keep it from accumulating.
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Landfills and Incinerators
In the base game, there are two buildings that assist with garbage disposal. The first is the landfill, which unlocksat the 420 population milestone. The second is the incineration plant, which is part of the big 7,000 population milestone.
Both buildings generate pollution, just like basic industry buildings and both the coal and oil power plants. Players can see this pollution radius as a red circle when placing a garbage building, and over time the grass and trees in this area will turn brown and die off. Since garbage disposal is something every city needs, players will never completely get rid of this pollution unless they get a DLC like Green Cities.
As time goes on, landfills will fill up with garbage until they reach 100 percent of their capacity. At this point, players will need to build another landfill to house extra garbage, and unlike most civic buildings players can’t move or destroy landfills unless they’re completely empty. This is toprevent players from cheatingby filling landfills and then destroying them.
The incinerator unlocked by the Big Town milestone is a much better building. Instead of letting garbage pile up, the incinerator burns it and turns it into electricity. However, players will likely need several incinerators by the time the building unlocks to keep up with the city’s garbage production,and these can be expensive.
Incinerators also give players a chance to get rid of landfills. By selecting “empty landfill” on the building’s menu, the garbage trucks connected to the landfills will transport its contents to incinerators and other landfills until it fully empties. At this point, players can destroy the building. However, players should be aware that garbage collection will drop off while the landfills are supplying the incinerators.
Garbage Trucks
Something else players should keep in mind is that garbage collection iscompletely dependent on the road network. Electricity sends power between buildings automatically and players can build water pipes wherever they want, but the only way to clear out garbage is for a garbage truck to drive by and collect it.
This means traffic levels and road design have a big impact on how much garbage accumulates in buildings. If a garbage truck can’t reach a building quickly, the residents will start complaining about the trash leveland may abandon it if things don’t get better.
Each garbage service building comes with a certain number of garbage trucks, and this number can go up or down depending on the city budget for garbage disposal. To get proper coverage of the whole city, players should set landfills and incinerators in several locations and make sure there are no major traffic snarls between them and the biggest population centers.
One last thing to keep in mind is that high-density commercial and residential zones create more trash than low-density zones. Garbage buildings should never be too close to commercial or residential zones, but they should have clear access to high-density areas.
Cities: Skylinesis available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, and it will come out for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 15.
