Bachman is the Northwest Transfer Station, at 9500 Harry Hines Boulevard, and it is the most useful of Dallas's three transfer stations for anyone with a weekday job. It runs Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closes on Sunday - the other two city transfer stations shut their doors to the public at 9 a.m. on weekdays.

It is also the only one of the three that takes small commercial customers as well as residents. Commercial loads are billed at the city's published commercial disposal rates; household self-haul is free.

Free means genuinely free, but the qualifying conditions are narrow. You must be a Dallas resident bringing waste from your own home, in a passenger car, station wagon, pickup, or a trailer shorter than fifteen feet. A valid driving licence is needed simply to get through the gate, and on top of that you must prove Dallas residency - either a government-issued ID carrying a Dallas address, or a current City of Dallas water bill in the name of whoever is entering. A bill in a partner's or landlord's name will not do.

The station handles recyclables, scrap metal, grass clippings, household waste, and electronics from residents. Tyres are capped at six per resident per year and none may be larger than 25 inches across.

Read the refusal list before loading, because it catches the two commonest jobs. Refrigerators, freezers and air-conditioning units are turned away, so a kitchen clear-out needs somewhere else to go. So do rocks, bricks, concrete and dirt, which rules the station out for demolition and landscaping debris. Chemicals, paint and other hazardous material belong at the Home Chemical Collection Center on Plano Road instead. Note also that the customer service window has moved from the side of the building to the front.