Waste management

Since I moved from the PC to the Mac, I've struggled to understand a few things, like editing photos before uploading. My sideways shot was meant to convey a bit how garbage works here. Every house has three rolling dumpsters outside whose contents are collected on different schedules.
One contains compostable waste (mostly food scraps for us--as vegetarians, we have a lot of veg and fruit waste). One contains recyclables (paper and plastic). And one contains garbage.

Here are our indoor containers. In addition, we take all of our glass bottles and jars to a central glass recycling place at a nearby park. We also have a separate bin for cat litter. So waste management is a little more difficult than in the U.S. I really don't mind because I've always experienced some anxiety when I see large piles of garbage out every week at homes in the U.S. All that stuff has to go somewhere and so much of it is recyclable.

The reason I'm talking garbage is that today I took a load of waste from our new house to one of the city recycling centers. I had a station wagon full of carpets, bags of wallpaper, strips of wood, and a flourescent light. The center has a series of bins into which you dump different kinds of things. It's all free and staffed by friendly people in reflective vests who help you unload your car. In the U.S., we went to a similar place but it was run by a guy who needed donations to keep it going and it was staffed by volunteers. In the U.S., so many things that are valuable are barely able to keep going. Below is a list of what is accepted at city recycling centers.

Aerosols Aluminium foil (clean)
Batteries (household and car)
Beverage cartons
Camping gas bottles Cans (steel and aluminium)
Cardboard CDs and books (for reuse)
Chemicals and pesticides
Cooking oil
Engine oil
Electrical goods (small)
Fire extinguishers
Fluorescent tubes
Garden waste
Gas bottles
Glass bottles and jars
Hard plastics
Ink cartridges
Mobile phones
Paints and varnishes
Paper
Plasterboard
Plastic bottles
Scrap metal
Spectacles
Textiles
Timber
Tools
TVs and monitors
Tyres
Walking aids
White goods (inc. fridges)
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