Can anyone tell me why the vast number of cafés and restaurants in the city do not recycle? I’m actually having a hard time coming up with more than a couple that do. I am constantly walking back to the cash registers with papers and plastics asking where the recycle bins are. And I’m repeatedly told that there is no recycling policy in place. That means that the only way to recycle is to do it yourself… and who wants to carry papers and plastics around with them until they get home?
Have you ever witnessed that even the nicer restaurants in town dump their wine bottles into the blue garbage bins? Most of them do it from what I have witnessed. If you ask the owner why, the answers range from, “Restaurants are not given big recycle bins” to “There is no deposit on a wine bottle”. Why is there no deposit on a wine bottle? And why is it so easy for cafés and restaurants to not offer customers the choice to recycle? Maybe it’s a hassle. Maybe the bins take up too much room. Maybe customers get confused and throw garbage into the bins. Regardless, the restaurateurs that I have spoken with have expressed an interest in recycling, but if it is not made easy, then chances are they won’t do it.