Recycla has just returned from a fabulous vacation in Canada. Specifically, she went to Niagara Falls and then spent five days in Toronto. Recycla wasn’t specifically looking for how eco our neighbors to the north are, but the evidence presented itself within minutes of crossing the border.
Some examples:
- Recycling bins EVERYWHERE — no exaggeration. At tourist attractions, on street corners, on sin subway stations, and even in the family’s hotel room. If there was a trash can somewhere, almost 100% of the time there were recycling bins there too.
According to the friend Recycla visited, Toronto and the surrounding suburbs have excellent curbside recycling. In fact, homeowners and businesses are required to recycle and compost and must use clear trash bags so that the trash collectors can look inside and see that there’s nothing recyclable in there.- There is a wind turbine in downtown Toronto, right on Lake Ontario. You can’t miss it, because it’s massive.
- As Recycla’s train was passing through town after town after town, she saw a massive metal recycling facility and even a factory that recycles dry wall.
- The country has excellent rail and public transportation systems so that people don’t have to rely as heavily on their cars.
Recycla isn’t saying that Canada is the perfect eco country — our neighbors to the north use vast amounts of oil, just we Americans do — but they certainly seem to be doing a better job of at least recycling more and producing less waste.
Three cheers for Canada! That’s a LOT of recycling by American standards!
Well, if McCain somehow wins the election and my husband feels forced to move to another country, Canada has my vote for sure!
(I’m not even really exaggerating here!)
Spare a thought for the Aussies, EcoWomen! We live in society here where Being Green Friendly is not frowned upon as being a “hippie”, but rather is part of our everday.
Across Australia, our recycling bins are as big as our rubbish bins. Water tanks are not only quite common, but big business. Public transport is welcomingly overcrowded on most days.
I live in Queensland and we are in the midst of a severe drought. Here in Brisbane, our city council has even put together a campaign for the city called “Green Heart City Smart” – aimed to make Brisbane the most sustainable city in Australia. Check it out: http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/BCC:CITY_SMART:2019665813:pc=PC_2797
Can I commend France also? We were in a group of 32 houses with a group of 150 flats at the bottom of the hill. The commune of 180 buildings had a communal bin area (which really makes you think about what you are throwing out when you have to walk to the bottom of the hill clutching the bag in front of everyone to add to the large bins) and three recycling tubes – plastic, card and paper, and glass. The tubes were about Cheeky’s height but from the noise the glass made when it fell, there must have been three large pits underneath that are somehow accessed to recycle it all.