Whilst in the UK we often consider ourselves as a ‘developed nation’, there are in fact many areas in which we have fallen behind, often actually being caught up or overtaken by so-called ‘developing nations’. One of these areas is recycling.

In the UK, as far as I know (and unless things have changed since I left about 8 months ago) recycling is on a completely voluntary basis. Furthermore, recycling is actually quite a hassle. Our house (back in Kendal) is full of tubs of empty cans, empty bottles, cardboard and plastics ready to be taken to the local council waste disposal site for recycling - a trip that we have to make ourselves in the car every week. OK, admittedly, the council introduced a new recycling scheme where all households now get a couple of small crates for cans and bottles which are emptied every week. However, this is completely unrealistic for a number of reasons:

• Most households get through quite a few glass bottles, jars and tin cans in a week. A small crate is hardly going to be big enough.
• Plastics and organic waste form the largest part of household waste and yet neither of these are catered for in the scheme.
• There is no incentive for you to go to the trouble of scrubbing out your glass jars and tin cans and putting them in the crate. You are not penalised in the slightest if you are lazy and just chuck them in the general waste bin.

China on the other hand - lets remind ourselves, a developing nation - has got things completely sorted. Recycling here is on a freelance basis. All over the place there are people riding three-wheeled bikes with trailers who collect rubbish for recycling. Likewise there are a number of fixed recycling stations (you are never more than a 5 minute walk away from one) where you can take your recyclable waste. Instead of wasting some petrol driving halfway accross town every fortnight on a voluntary basis, here you are remunerated for the waste you hand in - you actually sell it to the recyclers!

Recycling is no big money maker but to put things in perspective a couple of months worth of waste hoarded up in a cupboard in my kitchen made me 11 yuan when I took it along to the recycling lady last week. If we put that into context, its enough to buy you a Cheeseburger and Chips in any of Beijing’s McDonalds chains (not that I like McDonalds but its pretty good price reference). In the UK a Cheeseburger and Chips would set you back about £2.00-£2.20 so I guess you would make about that much money in the UK. Furthermore, in Beijing I actually don’t really use anything tinned (Chinese people aren’t really into tinned food) and I hardly stock any jars either. For a family of 5 in the UK who get though considerably more tins, jars and bottles than I do here in Beijing you could be making pounds a week by recycling rather than throwing away your household waste.

I know things aren’t perfect here in China and there is a lot to be done. However, I think that the UK government could learn a thing or two from China and other countries who run similar schemes (Canada, Germany etc). Its all well telling everybody to save the planet but few people will actually go and do anything about it unless there is some incentive there for them to take action.