The domestic waste policy of the UK may be a snooping-backed exercise in social engineering resulting in environmental disaster, but in all fairness it does have the redeeming feature that recycling is at least made reasonably easy. As a result I have historically recycled glass and metal. The same thing cannot be said about Ireland.
Since I had access to a car for a few weeks, I took the opportunity to actually try and find a recycling point within a reasonable distance of my apartment, and it dawned on me about how inaccurate Dublin’s recycling information pages are. The bottle bank supposedly around the corner within a city council car park was nowhere in sight when I looked. As for the “Bring Centre” that was supposed to be a kilometre to the north, a combination of walking, driving (with sat-nav), and Google satellite view failed to locate it.
I did manage to locate a recycling centre, but that was only after going down the wrong side street that required a 12-point turn to get out of, and anywhere that is an ordeal to get to with a car I simply will not visit without one. After 20 minutes of night-time (i.e. Traffic-free, unlike when the centre would actually be open) driving my patience has finally run dry.
This morning i was woken by the sound of those two sacks of olive jars shattering in the back of the refuse truck.