h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been my experience that most people are stupid, selfish, and lazy. Anything that will help the environment but will require brains, money, and/or effort will ultimately never catch on. The trick is to find something that will appeal to at least two of those traits, and make enough people aware of it that they all do it.

For instance, in California (USA), recycling, especially of aluminium cans, is very popular. It requires very little brains to spot an aluminium can, there's not too much effort into putting it into a different bin than the rest of garbage, and often times, cans can be redeemed for money. No matter that a garbage can full of compacted cans will net about $8 (this I know from personal experience). It's just the perception of making money that does it for most people.

But still, there are the select few who are too lazy even to walk an extra foot or two to the recycling bin. They will thoughtlessly toss their recyclable drink containers into the garbage with the rest of their lunch refuse. Every so often, I will shelve my dignity for a minute and retrieve a can or bottle sitting on top of the garbage pile and put it in the adjacent recycling bin.

My youth group does that--recycling aluminum cans to get money. We have a pop machine in our church, and a recycle bin right next to it. It's a pretty good way of making money, cuz teens are drinking cans of pop all the time.

There is the view that to get into a car and drive to the recycling facilities is counter productive - instead any new development whether a business park or new housing estate should have appropriate banks and not just the basic cans - it should include plastic (our area doesn't do this at all) and cardboard (collection twice a month as well as paper).

Most supermarkets have them in the UK now. You can drop off the stuff for recycling when you do your shopping.

Oh. And a top tip for recycling bottles and beer cans. Rinse them out after you use them, or else a month later when you take them for recycling, you may get a wave of putrid moldy beer (wine, lucozade etc) washing over your pinkies...

Not that it's ever happened to me of course.

I honestly think my local supermarket gets more business by providing recycling points for bottles, paper, cans, tin foil and even clothes - Whenever I go by (they're open 24/7 in the week) someone's recycling something...

In my case I do internet shopping so its not an option and I really don't want to make a special trip.

The energy savings from recycling an aluminium can is (supposedly) enough to run a television for three hours. I believe that; to separate aluminium from ore one needs to run a very high voltage (in the range of tens of thousands of volts) for quite some time.

So with enough cans, driving to the recycling center isn't very counterproductive.

Oregon, U.S.A. has a "bottle bill" in that most drink containers for things like soda pop and beer have a deposit. You return them to the grocery store and you get money back. This is anywhere in the state.

I live in Portland and we have an excellent curbside program. On the night you put out your trash you also put out your recyclables in bins provided to you by the city. Now you don't even have to sort things much, just put it out and the recycling people take care of it. I actually went out and purchased some nifty stacking bins and on my porch I have one for glass, cans (and bits of aluminum foil), paper/cardboard (the kind that cereal boxes use), and a larger bin for plastic containers. The will also pick up corrugated cardboard (i.e., big boxes) if it's put out as well.

So once a week all I have to do is make a few more trips to the curbside.

I find it hard when I'm on business trips and am visiting places that don't recycle. I'm terribly lucky to be living somewhere that it's easy to do, popular, and from what I understand cost effective for the city as well. I wish more places would institute this kind of program.

wow!! you have found an easy, ecological AND inexpensive way to avoid contact with other people!! ... No wonder you only got to mid-week ...

*grin*

Actually with services like HomeGrocer.com, NetFlix.com, Kozmo.com, and DrugStore.com I can very well avoid contact with other people.

If I ever start telecommuting for real, as opposed to once in a while, I'll have avoiding people down to an art

Granted, they call me rather often, so that doesn't always work. And then there's email.

I saw some cool machines in Austria last week. They were like fruit machines for cans. It was in a Play Castle, so the kids could buy a can of drink and then put the empty can in the machine. They might win nothing, but they might win a free ticket back again, or another drink, or whatever. I didn't give it a go, but it looked good.