Taipei 04 Recycling

Its amazing how much efforts is taken into recycling here in this part of the world. Shops do not easily issue out plastic bags even if your purchases are huge! Esp. if they see you already carrying one in your hands, regardless of how its seams are bursting... you may actually be requested to pay for it.

One evening, we went into the 7-11 to make some mega purchases (later i'll tell u what they are hee..... *slurp*) and along with our mega purchases, we bought some drinks and sweets, the lady asked if we needed a bag, so we said YES for the drinks since they are freaking COLD and I'm NOT going to hug them all the way back to the hotel like what I had to do with the 2L bottled water after my fingers ached from trying to find a comfortable way to negotiate around its neck.... so so chilly... *grrrhhh*

The lady whipped out one carry bag which looked totally plain like any other plastic bags that we are so used to in Singapore and she zapped it! There was a barcode at the edge of the bag and it cost us 1NT (=S$0.06). Okay, its not like expensive here.... but still its $$. I guess this barcode zapping experience has made me more aware of saying yes to bags.... and definitely treasure the bag alot more than those stuck in the cupboard back home. Perhaps, we should also do this back home in Singapore, just to jot the folks abit to make them realise the cost of NOT re-cycling.

"THE 1NT BAG"


One evening, we were walking along the streets, we saw a huge gathering of people, all with either green or white plastic bags in their hands, for a while we were wondering what's the fuss.



Then we realised, they were waiting for the recycling trucks! So cool! The folks actually have to clear their own trash! Okay, I totally appreciate our own personal dustbin in the house for the longest time. But this is yet another good measure to ensure that people have little trash as waste, else you'll be lagging your trash down the streets in the freaking cold night waiting for the truck to comeby. So its got its merits... but I doubt it'll be applicable to us in the near future. Even with our own dustbins in our OWN houses, our HDB corridors, left landings are often filled with trash, junk, unwanted furniture. Its unbelievable how uncivic-minded we can get. Recently, one neighbour was moving out and she conveniently littered our lift landing with her unwanted trash, she was "nice" or "smart" enough to separate them out into different piles and put them at different corners to not crowd the corridor? or become a fire hazard?

the nice big yellow truck with a cute music to announce its arrival....


it comes with recycling messages on its sides as well...


The Taiwanese folks are generally pleasent people, polite and helpful, with a strong sense of community living. Even during throwing of their trash, they aid one another along:


Recycling efforts along the streets are evident by their numerous recycling bins found everywhere. You need not walk far to find one of them...


Also, most eateries, especially those with high turnover, uses cardboard and wooden utensils instead of plastic except for the spoons. So I guess, Singapore.... we still have along way to go.... try lah....

okay everyone who's reading this today, go home and find all your empty plastic bottles, tin cans and put them into the green recycling bags and send them for recycling k? good!