If willingness—nay, enthusiasm—to be responsible for recycling household trash is a valid measure of public social consciousness, then Belgium can be pretty proud of itself. Household debris in Brussels, as an example, must be categorized into plastics, glass, paper and garbage, placed in the appropriately colored bag or container, left at the curb on the appropriate day, or even hauled to neighborhood sites for disposal. Glass, for example, must be carried to central bins, again sorted by color, and subsequently tossed in the correct container. While the regime varies somewhat by commune, Belgium is collectively dark-green in an environmental sense. Even its politics has a strong Green Party representation.
The Federal state has assessed a charge for the ultimate disposal of electrically-powered and other devices composed of hazardous materials that require special treatment or disassembly when reaching their end-of-life. If you bought a TV or an electric razor, you would find a small amount added to the bill for just that purpose, with the charges going toward the operation of regional recycling centers which do the necessary. Again, the citizen must save up his items and make a trip to the communal disposal for this to work, but the policy seems to be embraced by most. Belgians seem to understand the necessity to look after their countryside, perhaps because there is so little of it, and what isn't occupied is so intensely beautiful. Most of us have little experience in dealing with radioactive wastes and other nasty goops found in modern electronic appliances, and, in you think about it, you don't want to bury such substances near your ground water, either. Unfortunately, for us in Florida, anything placed below knee-level is close to ground water.
There's less trash to be treated in Belgium, in part because residents a) are often more cautious in buying stuff for which they can't see an important purpose or function (something that doesn't get in the way of American consumerism), and b) stuff lasts longer or is considered functional for a longer period. Thus, there just is less remaining for ultimate disposal. When N. and I moved to the U.S. we were amazed at the quantity and variety of stuff left at the curb for pickup by the trash trucks. Entire households seem to be gutted regularly and left to the city for disposal. Perhaps as a result of this trashy incontinence, our current city is obsessed with the size and future of its land-fill sites. (There is almost no recycling in our State—they just bury the junk; out of sight, out of mind.). Contract values for digging a hole, throwing trash therein, and covering the hole (to be admittedly simplistic) are enormous. Waste disposal is a very big business in the U.S., and business is good, depending upon your perspective.
Europe, and much of the rest of the world, is taking a different tack, and having lived the regimen, I'm sympathetic to its ambitions. After all, recycling is such a simple task, requiring so little of our time, and yet returning such enormous, long-term benefits. Some find the bottle banks, spotted around Brussels and other cities in Belgium as ugly; a blight. I think they are beautiful.
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