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| From Miss P. says |
In Europe, there is an obsessive pre-occupation with recycling services. One must have the correct box for the correct re-cycable items, and they must be put out for collection on the correct day. Woe betide any local council who asks their inhabitants to make the effort to DELIVER the said reusable items themselves - it simply is too much. There are school runs to perform, dates to make, volunteering to do, family to care for and that is before we have even done the shopping (to buy more things to re-cycle) or been to work - right?
The fundamental difference that I have noticed, is that people see these discarded 'residual' goods to be of no value to them. If a person receives no immediate reward for taking the bottles to the bank, then they find the task harder. In my current home country, there is a visible value in these items. Many people make a living (ok- at the lowest level, a survival) out of recycling. Some of the wealthiest people in the country have made it through the re-cycling industry.
Everyday I see people with sacks of plastic bottles and inconceivable loads of wood / paper / polystyrene on their trikes. Just as I step out of my front gate, there is an unofficial patch belonging to a local man, who is either off gleaning 'stuff' or hanging out, perhaps bargaining with a passing trader over the buying price for their haul of plastic bottles. I have several times found him 'dismantling' electrical goods with a hammer. The streets are constantly host to the sound of makeshift hand bells rung by the 'rag and bone' trike men who will happily enable you to dispose of almost anything - these folk can be found exploring communal rubbish bins, en masse, at night. There appears to be almost nothing they will not consider.
It's a classic picture - the overloaded bike/trike or moped in a developing country. but still, it fascinates us 'westerners'. To me it is just a constant reminder of the ingenuity of man, the lengths people will go to to achieve their living, and the privileged world I have been born into.
