REDUCING WASTE AND RECYCLING

Bins for recycling are everywhere in Italy. Large green bins for 'regular' garbage. Bright blue bins for plastics and metal. Large yellow bins for cardboard. Smaller brown bins for everything biodegradable. Oh, and the large rounded bins for glass...plenty of wine bottles to recycle, at least for us. I guess for those who bottle their own wine, their recycling is a little different!

Although the bins are everywhere, I'm not really sure how aware, or how committed, the average Italian is to recycling. We often see people dump everything into the one large 'general' garbage can, when the bin for their plastic bottles is just a few steps away. I don't think things are much better in the states.

When we lived in an area where we had to pay for private garbage collection, we paid extra to have a recycling bin. It didn't make sense that we had to pay extra for something the garbage company was going to sell for a profit, but never-the-less, we felt committed to the idea, so we paid the fee. Later when we lived in a community where our garbage collection and recycling was paid for through property taxes, I noticed that not many people seemed to take advantage of the recycling program.

When the candidates for mayor began their rounds one fall, I commented on this to one of them. He acknowledged that less than half the households participated, and I suggested that some sort of publicity campaign be run. If we were paying for the recycling bins and service, why wouldn't people take advantage of the service? How hard is it to pile up your old newspapers, or rinse out your tin cans and plastic soft drink bottles?

I'm sure most of you have read about the garbage crisis that seems to occur in Naples on a regular basis. What to do with garbage must be a problem for countries all over the world. Some manufacturers have reduced the amount of packaging for their products, but we still have long way to go. The trendiness of bottled water adds to the problem. Everything seems to be made of plastic these days, and of course these plastic products seem to break with increasing ease. Because it's usually not possible to repair such items, and because the replacement cost is often less than the cost of repair anyway, more and more junk piles up.

On a recent trip to the IperCoop, I saw this new dispenser for soap...four different types: hand soap (also used for hand washables), floor cleaning detergent, dish washing liquid, and fabric softener. After an intial fee of 50¢ for the bottle, the charge is then per liter....€1.20/liter for the hand soap and 90¢/liter for everything else. I wish there was some way to know how successful this program is, but at least someone is coming up with practical ideas like this.

What are YOU doing to reduce waste and recycle everything you can?