Recycling in various countries

Location: Maryland

When I was in Ireland I was struck by the differences in the effort toward "greenness" (bad pun intended). In America, there are lots of people who have gone green by choice, but not quite as much trickle-down from local governments as in Ireland, possibly.

In my community, though there have been recycling trucks for some time - it's only been in the last 6 months or so that bins were provided to each household.

Before that, it was haphazard - everything had to be packaged a certain way before you could set it out for recycling and if it wasn't exactly right - they would just leave it curbside, which discouraged a lot of people.

In Ireland I noticed that even shopping bags weren't just given out as they are here. Everyone either brought their own or you paid for the bags each time.

Although the downside was - they had quite a few containers to recycle glass bottles out by the fishing dock (maybe 15?) and they were big. However, not once during the whole week I was there was the recycling picked up and there were bottles strewn all over the pavement by the time we left.

I just wondered what recycling protocols are already in place in other countries. Are they more or less stringent? I think I just read somewhere that Japan plans to recycle at least 60% of its refuse.

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Recycling in various countries