20 years ago, Canada embarked on a program to cut waste by 50% by the year 2000 using the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. As a young school child at the time, I was encouraged forced to recycle. We had intense recycling within the school, with prizes for classes with the least amount of waste. Each classroom had its own bins for aluminum, glass, plastic and paper/cardboard and realizing what could be recycled was ingrained from an early age.
Though gaining more and more importance in today’s world, day-to-day recycling still seems to be a low priority for most British people. I suppose this is because it is still seen as voluntary rather than compulsory and heck, 20 years ago Britain wasn’t as concerned – they just chucked everything in a landfill in China rather than educating the younger generation (maybe that explains the apathy here?).
"Warm up to recycling" by Toban Black
In Canada it’s not uncommon to see public recycling bins accompanying regular garbage ones along the streets and in parks. From what I’ve gathered in the UK (in my area, anyways), there are no public recycling bins except in privately run parks. This is something that is being introduced in London at the moment, but how long before it catches on nationally?
As well, many supermarket items in Canada are sold in larger, plastic containers as opposed to smaller, glass ones. Take, for example, peanut butter (Fig. 1). Here we have the most delicious peanut butter in the world, Jif (510g in a plastic container) vs. Sun-Pat (sold most commonly in 227g but in this diagram, 350g in a glass container). Manufacturers in the UK must spend a fortune and produce a heck of a lot of waste… Shouldn’t there be some laws governing that?
And, even though 9/10 households in the UK have kerbside recycling, most if not all of the Britons I know don’t actively recycle. Perhaps they’re lacking incentive to do so. Perhaps they were never taught how?
Canadians seem to, especially in places where garbage bags have to be marked with a pricey sticker in order to be picked up on the curb. When you buy beer / liquor bottles in Canada, they tack on a “bottle deposit” fee, which you get back if you bring your bottles back to the store. Incentive…
Despite recent efforts, there’s no doubt that the UK is significantly behind in the green movement (Fig. 2). I’ll do my part, but I sincerely hope things change drastically over the next few years. If not, I’m moving to Austria! 
Further Reading
- Where Does Your Recycling Go? BBC News
- Recycling Symbols Quiz BBC News
- Environment and Greener Living direct.gov.uk
- Recycling and Waste Defra
