Recycling (Monday-Tuesday)

[GilliC]

There's no Monday post yet, and it's already over for part of the world, so Happy Monday-Tuesday!

What's going on this week?

QOTD - Building off the garbage disposal discussion...
What is the recycling / waste disposal system like where you live?
(What are you able to recycle? Do you have to pay for it? How does it work? etc.)

[GilliC]

I don't have any super exciting plans this week, but one of my friends that I don't get to see very often is between her semester coursework and her internship, so we're planning to meet up this week. Also, it's been snowing a lot, so some people have been talking about doing some cross-country skiing after work some evening.

QOTD - A few years ago the city of Oslo introduced some king of magical optical sorting, so our plastic and food waste go into special blue and green bags along with the rest of the garbage. They're sorted out at the processing plant, and the food wast goes into biofuel for the city buses.

There are separate bins for paper (including cardboard and drink cartons).

Glass and cans go to recycling points around the city, and I'm super spoiled because we have one in our basement trash room.

And beer cans and soda bottles go back to the grocery to collect the deposit money.

[origami]

Nothing super exciting. Our local american women's club is have an event today with some embassy staff and wondering if the ambassador and or his wife will finally show up to something. The other country-specific women's clubs see their ambassadors all the time but ours come to nothing. Nothing for the AWC I mean.

ETA: Nope they didn't come


QOTD: we have a garbage and recycling dump in the basement of our building, which I think is common since so many of us are in apartments. The food garbage goes (bagless) into one giant food collection bin. Non-recyclables go in a special plastic govt-issued trash bag that is only sold at one store in my area. Recycling (all of it) gets divvied up in the basement. We sort the paper/cardboard, styrofoam, plastic, metal, glass, lights, batteries and "other" where I've put medicine. It seems like people put every kind of plastic in the plastic box so I don't know if they actually try to recycle everything or if somewhere it gets resorted. A building employee collapses the boxes and makes sure it's sorted correctly. It's really convenient except for the govt trash bags. Those are a weird size and the 1 store that has them is frequently out of the big bags.

[loira]

Now that we've moved back to Canada, I find recycling here to be really lacking. There is a recycle pickup (paid for by taxes, presumably), but not as many types of recycling are accepted, and I find people to be a lot more wasteful on the whole - and we live in BC which is seen as a more environmentally friendly province. I do, however, like that plastic bags are mostly banned from supermarkets. You either bring your own bags or you get given paper.

[mrsukyankee]

I'm having my hockey team over for a cheese and wine party on Wednesday so today is all about cleaning and clearing out the ground floor and doing shopping. My H is working from home so trying to work around him and his needs.

QOTD: where I live in London is fabulous about recycling. We have huge bins for mixed recycling and green waste as well as a good sized bin for food waste. They come once a week for all of these along with the normal bin collection.

[rupertpenny]

Lol. Recycling is not a thing here.

Well, there are separate bins out on the street for plastic, paper, metal, etc. but it's common knowledge it all goes to the same place and the garbage.

Nothing exciting going on here. I have a bad cough, probably exacerbated by the air quality. More motivation to complete my application for Icelandic citizenship so I can move to Europe someday. I love a lot of things about Hong Kong but the pollution is going to keep me from staying here for a long time.

[origami]

Jan 12, 2016 8:23:25 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Lol. Recycling is not a thing here.

Well, there are separate bins out on the street for plastic, paper, metal, etc. but it's common knowledge it all goes to the same place and the garbage.

Nothing exciting going on here. I have a bad cough, probably exacerbated by the air quality. More motivation to complete my application for Icelandic citizenship so I can move to Europe someday. I love a lot of things about Hong Kong but the pollution is going to keep me from staying here for a long time.

LOLOLOL that's so funny to me. I would not be surprised if that happened here too because I highly doubt they really do recycle all these styrofoam and plastic types. I get amused by the fact that we have to pay for plastic bags at the grocery store, so people use their own bags. Fine. But then they package so many food items in plastic. Like I can't go buy 1 apple, I have to buy a package of 6 apples that are sealed in plastic. Ditto for almost every other fruit. There's a "banana lady" that forces samples of bananas on everyone (because we don't know what bananas taste like?) and she insists on putting bananas in a plastic bag after you pick them out. I once tried to refuse and she was so disgusted that I would put my bananas in a dirty shopping cart. But at least I can put alllllll that plastic in the recycle bin!

[mrsukyankee]

I forgot to say that now you have to pay 5 pence if you want a bag at the grocers, so more people are using reusable bags, which is great. Like origami, I do wish they would stop having plastic bags of fruit there.

[loira]

Jan 12, 2016 8:50:30 GMT -5 origami said:

Jan 12, 2016 8:23:25 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

Lol. Recycling is not a thing here.

Well, there are separate bins out on the street for plastic, paper, metal, etc. but it's common knowledge it all goes to the same place and the garbage.

Nothing exciting going on here. I have a bad cough, probably exacerbated by the air quality. More motivation to complete my application for Icelandic citizenship so I can move to Europe someday. I love a lot of things about Hong Kong but the pollution is going to keep me from staying here for a long time.

LOLOLOL that's so funny to me. I would not be surprised if that happened here too because I highly doubt they really do recycle all these styrofoam and plastic types. I get amused by the fact that we have to pay for plastic bags at the grocery store, so people use their own bags. Fine. But then they package so many food items in plastic. Like I can't go buy 1 apple, I have to buy a package of 6 apples that are sealed in plastic. Ditto for almost every other fruit. There's a "banana lady" that forces samples of bananas on everyone (because we don't know what bananas taste like?) and she insists on putting bananas in a plastic bag after you pick them out. I once tried to refuse and she was so disgusted that I would put my bananas in a dirty shopping cart. But at least I can put alllllll that plastic in the recycle bin!

Lol, this reminds me of the tofu lady at the EMART near where we lived in Seoul. She was unbelievably pushy and would always try to get us to buy a certain kind of tofu. It was a 2 person job - I would distract her, and H would grab the tofu we actually wanted.

[origami]

Jan 12, 2016 11:15:00 GMT -5 loira said:

Jan 12, 2016 8:50:30 GMT -5 origami said:

LOLOLOL that's so funny to me. I would not be surprised if that happened here too because I highly doubt they really do recycle all these styrofoam and plastic types. I get amused by the fact that we have to pay for plastic bags at the grocery store, so people use their own bags. Fine. But then they package so many food items in plastic. Like I can't go buy 1 apple, I have to buy a package of 6 apples that are sealed in plastic. Ditto for almost every other fruit. There's a "banana lady" that forces samples of bananas on everyone (because we don't know what bananas taste like?) and she insists on putting bananas in a plastic bag after you pick them out. I once tried to refuse and she was so disgusted that I would put my bananas in a dirty shopping cart. But at least I can put alllllll that plastic in the recycle bin!

Lol, this reminds me of the tofu lady at the EMART near where we lived in Seoul. She was unbelievably pushy and would always try to get us to buy a certain kind of tofu. It was a 2 person job - I would distract her, and H would grab the tofu we actually wanted.

we have a pushy tofu lady too!!! She's not always there but I definitely have expired tofu packages in my fridge right now because she forced me to buy the double pack. We are in Seoul and this all happened at emart so maybe it was the same one!

[klingklang77]

I don't have much going on this week, besides work. I have a work get together on Thursday night. Friday night DH and I are making Buffalo wings and watching the debate.

QOTD: Recycling is done in Germany, lol.

I live in a house with three apartments. A family downstairs, DH and I, and a couple (but I think they broke up last week because he moved out) above us. We have one Bio (Organic) bin, one Paper bin, and one Restmuell (rest of the things) bin. The Bio is picked up every 2 weeks. The Paper is picked up every two weeks. The Restmuell is picked up once a week. The Paper and Restmuell never seem to be enough for us. We just seem to make it with the Restmuell, but the Paper we sometimes have to bring to the recycling center down the block. The family downstairs also has a business, so I'm not sure how much of the garbage is used for that.

We recycle glass by colour (brown, green, and clear) and there are bins all over the city.

There is also the plastic. The plastic bins are next to the glass bins.

Since we order online a lot, the paper is a problem for us. We need to bring it to the recycling center about once a month.

For plastic bottles and cans (soda and beer) you bring them back to the supermarket to get your "Pfand" (deposit) back. There are two types of plastic Pfand. One is PET (I think that's the name) and you get 25 cents back for these. The other usually comes in cases and you get 15 cents and then the deposit for the case as well.

There will also be Pfand charged at open beer gardens and festivals for plates and beer mugs, etc.

Other things like batteries, Christmas trees, etc. you bring to the recycling center.

If you forget a bag at the supermarket, you pay 15-25 cents for a plastic bag. I almost always use my own bag.

I think I covered most of it.

[klingklang77]

Jan 11, 2016 11:43:48 GMT -5 GilliC said:

[...] Also, it's been snowing a lot, so some people have been talking about doing some cross-country skiing after work some evening [...]

I'm jealous of your snow. There is nothing local here and I so want to go cross-country skiing. 

[poisonkisses]

Jan 13, 2016 6:33:29 GMT -5 klingklang77 said:

I don't have much going on this week, besides work. I have a work get together on Thursday night. Friday night DH and I are making Buffalo wings and watching the debate.

QOTD: Recycling is done in Germany, lol.

I live in a house with three apartments. A family downstairs, DH and I, and a couple (but I think they broke up last week because he moved out) above us. We have one Bio (Organic) bin, one Paper bin, and one Restmuell (rest of the things) bin. The Bio is picked up every 2 weeks. The Paper is picked up every two weeks. The Restmuell is picked up once a week. The Paper and Restmuell never seem to be enough for us. We just seem to make it with the Restmuell, but the Paper we sometimes have to bring to the recycling center down the block. The family downstairs also has a business, so I'm not sure how much of the garbage is used for that.

We recycle glass by colour (brown, green, and clear) and there are bins all over the city.

There is also the plastic. The plastic bins are next to the glass bins.

Since we order online a lot, the paper is a problem for us. We need to bring it to the recycling center about once a month.

For plastic bottles and cans (soda and beer) you bring them back to the supermarket to get your "Pfand" (deposit) back. There are two types of plastic Pfand. One is PET (I think that's the name) and you get 25 cents back for these. The other usually comes in cases and you get 15 cents and then the deposit for the case as well.

There will also be Pfand charged at open beer gardens and festivals for plates and beer mugs, etc.

Other things like batteries, Christmas trees, etc. you bring to the recycling center.

If you forget a bag at the supermarket, you pay 15-25 cents for a plastic bag. I almost always use my own bag.

I think I covered most of it.

Where I'm at, instead of having bins on the street that you bring plastic to, we have yellow bags (leichtverpackungen) that get picked up like garbage. Any packaging made of plastic, metal, or styrofoam, can go in the yellow bags, and there's no limit on how many bags you can put out for pick up. Our paper pick up is only once a month, but we're allowed to put extra cardboard boxes next to the bin for pick up, which is good since we do a fair amount of online shopping as well. Our other garbage pick up is only every other week but with the yellow bags, bio, glass, paper, and pfand, we don't have much left over so we've been fine sticking to our one bin. The yellow bags make a big difference though, so much stuff goes in there. 

[klingklang77]

Jan 16, 2016 5:23:45 GMT -5 poisonkisses said:

Jan 13, 2016 6:33:29 GMT -5 klingklang77 said:

I don't have much going on this week, besides work. I have a work get together on Thursday night. Friday night DH and I are making Buffalo wings and watching the debate.

QOTD: Recycling is done in Germany, lol.

I live in a house with three apartments. A family downstairs, DH and I, and a couple (but I think they broke up last week because he moved out) above us. We have one Bio (Organic) bin, one Paper bin, and one Restmuell (rest of the things) bin. The Bio is picked up every 2 weeks. The Paper is picked up every two weeks. The Restmuell is picked up once a week. The Paper and Restmuell never seem to be enough for us. We just seem to make it with the Restmuell, but the Paper we sometimes have to bring to the recycling center down the block. The family downstairs also has a business, so I'm not sure how much of the garbage is used for that.

We recycle glass by colour (brown, green, and clear) and there are bins all over the city.

There is also the plastic. The plastic bins are next to the glass bins.

Since we order online a lot, the paper is a problem for us. We need to bring it to the recycling center about once a month.

For plastic bottles and cans (soda and beer) you bring them back to the supermarket to get your "Pfand" (deposit) back. There are two types of plastic Pfand. One is PET (I think that's the name) and you get 25 cents back for these. The other usually comes in cases and you get 15 cents and then the deposit for the case as well.

There will also be Pfand charged at open beer gardens and festivals for plates and beer mugs, etc.

Other things like batteries, Christmas trees, etc. you bring to the recycling center.

If you forget a bag at the supermarket, you pay 15-25 cents for a plastic bag. I almost always use my own bag.

I think I covered most of it.

Where I'm at, instead of having bins on the street that you bring plastic to, we have yellow bags (leichtverpackungen) that get picked up like garbage. Any packaging made of plastic, metal, or styrofoam, can go in the yellow bags, and there's no limit on how many bags you can put out for pick up. Our paper pick up is only once a month, but we're allowed to put extra cardboard boxes next to the bin for pick up, which is good since we do a fair amount of online shopping as well. Our other garbage pick up is only every other week but with the yellow bags, bio, glass, paper, and pfand, we don't have much left over so we've been fine sticking to our one bin. The yellow bags make a big difference though, so much stuff goes in there. 

You are lucky they pick up the yellow bags. I hate having to carry garbage to throw out. I wish they would do that here because I would be more aware of that.