How good is your community at recycling?

[jazzgrrl]

I am curious to see what the current situation is in your town. The best recycling system I ever saw in place was in Eugene, Oregon. In Chicago, they SAY they recycle if you use different bags but we learned that was not always the case. Where I am in now in Brussels, they have a very elaborate system and it is your duty as a citizen to recycle but my husband and I have yet to figure out where to take everything.

[Guy]

Hahaha that reminds me when I lived in Germany and had the neighbours checking my rubbish to make sure I had separated them all correctly!

Down here in Australia things aren't quite as good. We do have plastics, glass and paper bins but lack the biodegradable bins. I have also heard stories of how the bins get all mixed up when they reach the dump anyway. Haven't seen a recycling plant down here so can't say how true that is.

Another thing I miss is being able to take your bottles back to the store. Only South Australia here does that for some reason.

[jazzgrrl]

Yeah, I do like returning bottles. Here we separate - some to get .10€ a bottle and some are just recyclable. The ones that are given back to the store are actually reused again and again. Many local breweries in the states do that still - my personal favorite being Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, MI. I grew up in Michigan which I believe is still the only state with a 10cent deposit. Good in"cent"ive!

[berlinlife06]

When I was in Berlin, they had some recycling, specially with plastic bottles, since they charged €0.25 as deposit. But that didn't include the cans. Now in New York, the program is a lot more detailed. And it includes metals, plastics, paper, glass, cardboard... and everything has a $0.05 deposit. (Cans and plastic bottles, and I think glass bottles too but I haven't bought glass in ages.)

[RFL1986]

We pretty much have enforced recycling set up in our city which is actually fantastic. Our garbage has to be sorted into landfill/recycling/compost or else it won't get picked up. Our local beer stores and such are good about rewarding returning your bottles with incentives as well so overall I'd say I live in a pretty good community for recycling.

[SageMother]

To participate in recycling here, we must separate our trash and a separate refuse service picks it up. Otherwise, all trash goes in the big trash bins in the alley.

[justontime]

We have a bin for compostable waste, one for paper, one for cans and plastic and one for landfill. They are all collected fortnightly. We can take glass, plastic, garden waste, hardcore, white goods, textiles, wood and all sorts of other things to the recycling centre. We go there about every two weeks.

[jazzgrrl]

Let me add to my original question: And what would you like to see improved? What would be more effective?

[Kitten]

Our local schools just set up a policy that requires all paper bought/used be at least 30% recycled. We also have tons of recycling bins in most buildings, so at least it's a step.

[tater03]

We have bins provided by our county to recycle. One other thing they do is have a big trash collector to get rid of all your old phone books every year.