The first time I encountered recycling, it was in Japan. All those bins in characters that I cannot understand always make me pondered which is the waste bin.
Since then, I always find different countries have different ways of recycling. In Singapore, we always have to separate paper from other recyclable materials. Thus we will even have a separate container just to collect the papers only.
And perhaps it's only in Asia society that we have karang guni (people who collect newspapers and clothings) and elderly people collecting cardboard paper to sell. I have not seen any person in Melbourne who collects metal cans and cardboard paper for a living.
Having said that, the Salvation army do collect clothes and accessories for re-sale. And we can do our part in recycling so long we do not dump our plastic bag into the recycling bin as well.
They will have different days to collect the rubbish and the recycling bins. So some days you will only see one of the bin being taken out and other days you will see the road littered with 2 types of bins.
One thing for sure, these bins are your responsibility and thus you will not find stuff that you should not throw into the recyclable bins (unlike those in SG or Japan). However if you stay in an apartment, the bins are shared with your neighbours. Then you will be reminded constantly to recycle the right way e.g. giving you a fridge magnet.
