I’ve spent the last few weeks travelling in Russia and the UK, two very different countries in terms of their approach to waste management and recycling. Russia has very little recycling infrastructure (at least in the areas that I was, not to generalize the entire country) and for the most part even managing waste systematically seemed to be fairly new. Most of the packaging did not have a recycling symbol or and I was not successful in my search for a recycling receptacle in any of the hotels that I visited.
In contrast one of the first sights that I saw in the UK was a waste collection truck with the slogan “Recycling, it’s not an option, it’s your duty!” Recycling is everywhere and visible from public recycling containers to food packaging. One of the interesting differences from Canada is that in the UK the packaging actually tells you if it’s not recyclable which I have never seen in Canada. Instead of fruitlessly washing plastic containers, trucking them to recycling facilities only to have them removed on the picking line here they actually tell you, sorry this just isn’t recyclable yet. Which is kind of honest, transparent and makes me feel like the UK has a bit better handle on the reality part of recycling.
I also had a chance to meet up with Philip Mossop of The Greenhouse in the UK which was great. I have been watching the development of The Greenhouse from across the Atlantic with a lot of interest, they are truly a “Next Generation Recycling Company” and have done some really innovative things in the last 5 years. It was interesting to see how much there is in common between Canada and the UK especially when it comes to the entrenched attitudes in the waste and recycling industry and how hard it is to change.
