Recycling Glass

Lyon is somewhere halfway between Japan and the US when it comes to recycling -- there's an awareness that something has to be done, but when it actually comes to doing it ...

Trash is picked up twice a week and there are separate containers for recyclables -- cans, PET bottles, papers. Oddly enough, unlike Japan there are not separate containers for these recyclables, so that means cans are thrown in along with newspapers and empty water bottles. Which means that eventually somebody will have to sort through the recyclables somewhere down the line. Or is that the point? To ensure employment for these sorters? What a far cry from the multi-tiered trash cans in Germany which implore you to separate your recyclables among glass, metal, paper and burnables. Even Japan does the same.

When I went to throw away my oyster-shell filled trash, somebody had already beaten me to the dumpsters and filled up all useable space with their Christmas tree. Ouch! Next time I'll have to dump my garbage on the same day they come to pick up the trash. Fortunately I found a nook and cranny for my garbage bag and fit it inside the dumpster.

But glass bottles are a different matter. I'd noticed that the recycling bins in my apartment complex said "no glass bottles" and upon further reading, I read that the Grand Lyon asks people not to put bottles in which the other recyclables because they shatter and make the process of sorting difficult, if not dangerous. So where are we supposed to take them?

Turns out that there are what they call silos à verre, which are literally "glass receptacles," at points spread out the community. Unfortunately, nobody told me where they were so I had to stop by the local town hall and ask them where these silos were. They didn't know offhand and had to track down a photocopied list of the locations. You would figure, if they really want people to use the silos, then they would publicize the locations better so that people could find them with ease!

Turns out that there's a silo about a 100m from my apartment building, which was not too far for me to take the yogurt and wine bottles which had been piling up in my kitchen. You plop the bottles in the crack (see photo) and voila! you're fulfilled your duty to recycle.