Seven brightly coloured bags that help you hit recycling targets stunningly early - and other good news
There's a city (Eskilstuna in Sweden) that sends no domestic rubbish to landfill. But part of its success involves asking residents to sort their rubbish into seven different brightly coloured bags.
More from Wikipedia:
In the Eskilstuna municipality, all household solid waste is recycled with optical color sorting since 2011, which is a new way of recycling. Each waste fraction has its own colored recyclable plastic bag and is disposed of in the same garbage bin. By using optical color sorting, house owners are able to sort out organic food waste, plastic, metal and paper packaging, textile, newspapers and household waste. The organic food waste is then used to produce biogas and the other five fractions are recycled and reused. The system of six different fractions is unique of its kind in Europe.
Their optical sorting system (titled Optibag, and which picks out coloured bags automatically): describes the method as thus:
Food waste in green bags
Textile in pink bags
Plastic packaging in orange bags
Paper packaging in yellow bags
Newspapers in blue bags
Metal in gray bags
Other fractions in mixed colors.
Could you be that disciplined?
More: San Francisco bans all plastic bottles.
In 2014, the city of San Francisco incorporated the first plastic bottle ban, though it prohibited far less than the current rules.
The new regulations prohibit the sale of plastic bottles at events held on city-owned property. Additionally, government agencies may not purchase bottled water.
Private businesses such as grocery stores and mini markets may continue to sell bottled water in the city. To date, little data exists on how the regulations have reduced overall plastic bottle use.
However, any measures to reduce plastic consumption makes a difference, and other cities have now begun enacting similar bans none too soon.
The city hopes that more consumers make the switch back to drinking regular tap water in lieu of pricey bottled stuff. The city has the advantage of possessing high quality tap water, making this goal reasonable.