Back to square one

A FEW days ago, I decided to collect all recyclable items: I was shocked to see how much gets wasted.

Milk bottles, Coke and soft drink bottles. Wine bottles, plastic margarine containers and others. The list is endless.

I collected one week’s recycling material. Our household consists of my wife and I and a maid. I could not believe how much I collected.

Imagine hotels, restaurants, etc. How much gets thrown into the garbage.

My idea was to ask every household in my street in Sea Point, as a guide to what can be done.

If it works, then the city could advise every household, hotel, etc to do the same.

I phoned the city council, and told the lady what my idea was.

That is, that every house etc collects all recyclable items, and puts it into plastic bags, to be collected on a Monday morning apart from the normal garbage collections.

But then the city would have to arrange to have these bags collected.

After waiting for the lady on the phone to come back to me, about 10 minutes, I was told that if we want to save recyclable items, then we must pay for the collection.

I told her to forget it, as nobody will want to be good citizens and then have to pay to be good citizens.

So, we are back to square one, and all the material for recycling will be thrown into the garbage bags. Markus Elkana Brajtman Sea Point