Today marks the beginning of a Recycling week at our local elementary school. It's interesting that my perception is that recycling is not something the Americans do very well. Perhaps I am wrong.
We have two large garbage bins, both black that we use for all sorts of trash. In Australia, trash bins are colour coded to encourage correct recycling. I think this works fairly well.
Our community relies on well water, as do may communities in New Jersey. The well water is safe to drink and is regularly tested but it is pretty unpalatable so most people make use of a company delivering spring water in large 5 gallon drums for the home and cases of bottled water for when families are on the run. This generates an enormous amount of plastic bottle waste. In addition I am constantly amazed by the amount of plastic bags used by grocery stores. My shopping is often double bagged at the counter, granted I do need to remember to take my reusable grocery bags each time I shop! Again though my perception is there is little incentive or encouragement for consumers to even bother to make use of reusable grocery bags. I try to take my plastic bags back to the supermarket for recycling but I don't see many people making that effort either. Packaging is another very obvious source of potentially reusable waste. I do wonder if it is worth limiting mini packs of snacks and food to force people to use reusable containers for school lunches and the like. Like most people I would be a little inconvenienced by this but I think this would make a huge difference to landfill and ironically to our wallets too, since we all happily pay extra for these tiny bags of convenience.
Its too easy to become lethargic about recycling, especially when it doesn't seem to be particularly important here. I'll do my best to make a small difference in my own home.
Note to self, check out the figures for the amount of waste generated by an average American household. Its sure to blow my mind.
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