I have friends in Europe, and last time I stayed with them they tried to explain, as best they understood it, the local recycling scheme. It was so complex that packaging has something like 5 different recycle logos, and their municipality only accepts 3 of them, but they're all just a circle of arrows pointing at each other with a number in the middle.
So can you recycle the brown bottle with the more square shaped arrows and the "3" in the middle? How about the next bottle exactly the same with the "3" in the middle but slightly more swirly arrows? Or the same square arrows and a "4"? They didn't even know, so they presort, show up at the recycle center with everything and get rid of what the employees there will accept and take home the rest for regular trash.
It's a huge waste of everybody's time. And the 20 minute drive to the local recycle center can't be helpful.
Most places in Europe I have lived will pick up everything from public containers not further than a few tens of meters from your house.
You only need to drive to recycle very-specific trash like baby diapers, dangerous substances, furniture and big appliances.
Common division is as follows:
- Blue for paper and carton
- Green for glass (some places classify glass in three colors: green, brown and white)
- Brown for compost
- Yellow for Metal and Plastics
- Other: Anything that does not fall on the previous containers.
Exceptions: batteries, electronics and dangerous substances, which, as I explained before, need to be picked or brought to a special recycle center.
So can you recycle the brown bottle with the more square shaped arrows and the "3" in the middle? How about the next bottle exactly the same with the "3" in the middle but slightly more swirly arrows? Or the same square arrows and a "4"? They didn't even know, so they presort, show up at the recycle center with everything and get rid of what the employees there will accept and take home the rest for regular trash.
It's a huge waste of everybody's time. And the 20 minute drive to the local recycle center can't be helpful.