Some while ago, a debate started on Twitter concerning recycling. Since Twitter is a bit narrow to elaborate on things, James Governor a.k.a. Greenmonk came up with the excellent idea to create a wiki page in order to amass knowledge on this theme. I want to have a repeat performance in this blog concerning the situation in Flanders (Belgium): Flanders claims to be the champion of sorting out waste. All depends on each town who decides which type of recycling will be done. In our town it goes like this:
paper, cardboard, ... collected once a month or can be dumped at the container park. Both are free.
certain plastics (bottles, etc.), metal (tins, cans, etc.) and beverage coated board packaging are collected every fortnight via a special plastic bag (bag to be paid) or can be dumped at the container park for free
vegetable, fruit and garden waste is collected every every fortnight a via a special trash bin which is billed per kilogram waste or if you have you a garden, can be composted (free of course)
all the rest of the waste is collected every every fortnight a via a special trash bin which is billed per kilogram waste
As alternative for the latter is the containerpark where you can dump:
parts of trees and prunings (paid/kg)
cellular concrete (paid/kg)
electric devices (free)
asbestos cement (free)
plaster (paid/kg)
glass (free)
grass, foliage, hedge waste (paid/kg)
large waste like mattrasses, etc (paid/kg)
reusable goods (free)
ceramics (paid/kg)
small chemical waste like paint (free)
cork (free)
old metal (free)
paper, cardboard (free)
frying fat (for French fries) (free)
expanded poly-styrene (free)
plastic foil (free)
certain plastics (bottles, etc.), metal (tins, cans, etc.) and beverage coated board packaging (free)
wood (paid/kg)
bricks (paid/kg)
batteries(free)
striplights (free)
textile (free)
As said, things can vary depending on the town. In the Antwerp area, you can throw your nappies together with the vegetable, fruit and garden waste for the fermentation installation. Other regions don't collect tins, etc separately. It's far from an ideal situation, but more on that in a follow up. My appeal to you is to add the recycling policy in your town/city/area/country in the above mentioned wiki page or, if you prefer, as comment to this blog.
