Same, Same, Different**
Oct 23rd, 2006 by Ian
Recycling
In Vancouver, I was used to recycling as many things as I could. The city has programs to recycle cardboard, paper, newsprint, glass, metal, plastics #1, #2, #4, and #5.
In Edinburgh, they do not recycle glass. Each wine bottle we buy is a wine bottle we toss into the garbage. It feels wrong - even though I know that glass is a very environmentally friendly waste due to it really just being melted sand.
The other major item that they do not recycle is plastic containers - they will recycle plastic bottles but no yogurt containers, no microwave dinner trays, etc. Plastic bags are not recycled either but it may be the same deal as in Vancouver that you can typically take the bags back to where you bought them - I haven’t tried that yet.
City Recycling Targets
Vancouver says that it has reduced solid waste by 18% from 1988 levels - hard to say what this really means? 18% by weight or volume? Is this based on a per capita or gross waste level? I’ve sent them an email; we’ll see what they say.
Scotland says they aim for a 25% recycling target. With a little digging, it seems this means that they weigh the garbage going into the landfill and the recycling that goes into the landfill. If recyclable hits 25% of waste, they’ve done it.
Reduce
Over the next while I’ll have to figure out how to reduce the waste that I am generating. There is an inner courtyard that our building backs onto, but it takes a key and we didn’t get a one. Some of the properties require you to pay a monthly fee for access to the courtyard - weird. Without courtyard access I don’t think that I’ll be composting.
Since glass isn’t recycled, I am going to buy my beer in cans (yes, the cans that have the BPA liner in them) … ah well. I like cans better anyway - ever since Adam took me on the tour of the Molson plant where he explained what he saw coming back in the bottles that were to be reused. The cleaning process is still rigorous, but Adam switched to cans so I prefer cans - you also get more beer (355ml vs 343ml).
It seems much more difficult to buy cooking goods here in large quantities. The biggest bag of flour we’ve seen so far is 1.5kg and we’ve been to a fair number of supermarkets - the biggest and quite common size in Vancouver was 10kg.
Stay tuned for more same, same, different.
**Title comes from Thailand - if you’ve been there and bought souvenirs, you should get it.