Nothing Goes to Waste

So, let's talk trash.

The villa of Gland is very concerned with recycling and being environmentally friendly. They have recently passed a tax of 75 francs per person per year, as a trash tax. (This might be a canton-wide initiative, but lets face it, I have no idea.) On top of this, you must purchase the approved trash bags- which are tiny and very expensive.

The end result is that we as a family recycle all types of things. Gone are the days where we throw everything into the huge trash can by the garage. If we have some leftover stuff, we weed out the cardboard boxes and the random wine bottles. But now we have four different trash containers, and a trash bag. We have the largest container for our common trash- keep in mind that this is far smaller than any American trash can. We put all our paper and cardboard things into another container. Another smaller one holds our organic trash or food leftovers, etc. Another one holds our plastic lids from milk or drink containers. Then, the bag has our plastic bottles, which tend to be bulkier than the rest.

This has been a big change for us, but definitely a change for the better. It's crazy to think that thinking in such an ecologically minded way is almost impossible in the States, whereas it is basically a requirement here.

This will be one of the things I add to my list of improvements for when/if I move back to Texas. Of course, it will require a lot of creativity to figure out how to do some of the more obscure recycling, but it seems very worth it in the long run.