Being “green” is very important here in Germany. There are separate trashcans for plastic, paper and food waste in almost every building. Many drinks come in glass bottles, and all bottles are refundable, plastic or not. There are automated refund machines in the school and in some grocery stores. When you buy a beer at a bar, you can return the bottle to the bar for 10-15 cents usually. The refund here is big enough and easy enough to get that you see a lot more bums that collect bottles and cans out of trash cans and off the street. It is interesting to see such an active recycling program, but at the same time, there are some downsides. For one, there is broken glass EVERYWHERE.
Glass may be easier to reuse, but it is a hell of a lot harder to clean up. In addition to the glass, the littering here is generally worse than anywhere I have been in America. Secondly, every drink costs more here, because they make the bottles out of harder plastics, and glass, they store less liquid because of this. You can easily pay 1.50 Euro for a .3L bottle of water. I like the refund system, and would like to see that implemented in America, but I don't like the use of glass bottles, it is disconcerting to see broken glass everywhere, because all it takes is one wrong step for it to go through a relatively thin shoe.
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