http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3075717.stm Id recycle more for sure if it was more readily promoted and easier todo. We have "green bag" collections by the council for paper/plastic/glass/clothing which my mum does but other then that it just goes in a black bag
It definatly needs to be more promoted over here. The Germans and Swiss promote it well and it's not hard to do. We recycle platic bottles and newspaper which the council pick up ever two weeks but we should be able to recycle a bunch of the other stuff that goes in the bin. We also have a solar water heater which saves quite a bit of electricity now that we don't use the electric shower. The electricity company even replaced our meter because they thought there was something wrong with it . Still I don't think it's covered the intial cost just yet but it's a step in the right direction.
I can't remember the name of the company that installed it for us. During the winter we can set the normal gas heater to give it a little help heating the water. I'm not sure exactly how much of the work the actual Solar Panel is doing but it must be saving us some energy
We dont have recyling in our area, but my mum live 5 miles away and does. We take round everything recycleable to hers each week. All you need is a separate bin for paper and plastics, and just store it up. I reacon we recyle about 60-70% of the stuff that gets binned every week in our house. BTW, on the topic of cleaner energy, you can sign up to companies which promise to only source eleccy from green sources (wind, solar etc) and they only cost about 10-20% more than standard. Well worth it IMO.
Don't know the German system, but the Swiss have a very good motive for sorting their rubbish - saving money. Separated recyclable stuff is taken away free, but for the rest they have to buy the official bin-bags from the local council, and they aren't cheap.
