I got to know some behavior which honestly astonished me coming from a country where utmost importance is attached to environmental protection. To not get me wrong, I am not talking about political actions on a national level concerning the crucial issue of climate change or the waste of natural resources but about how each individual could add its contribution to a cleaner environment.   

To give an example. Last weekend I went to a wonderful place up in the mountains in Abruzzo. We arrived at a place where one had a beautiful panorama of the valley. Around us was basically nothing but nature and, of course, one of this little cute Italian bars. Being already the late afternoon, my Italian friends ordered some beer. What the bar sold was German beer (here we go, globalization) in glass bottles. After everybody had enjoyed a good German beer, one friend of mine wanted to go in the bar to get the next round. I asked him to take the empty bottles and to give them to bar man who, so I thought, wants them back to recycle them. Stupid me! Some Italian friends started to laugh, others looked a little bit puzzled. I kept my chin up and insisted. So, my friend promised to ask and was inevitably told to through the bottles away. Glass bottles! Which are so easy so recycle! Now it was my turn to be really puzzled recognizing how used I am to a refund system. The same behavior holds by the way also for plastic bottles which are apparently thrown away together with leftovers, which, again by the way, are not thrown into a bio-bin. I am wondering where this behavior comes from. Is the individual already disillusioned by the system or is the system the bottom line of all individual behaviors? In a country where almost nobody separates its garbage it might indeed seem kind of senseless to be the only doing it. This is, however, another story namely the one of the drop in the ocean. What could be a starting point: What about a bottle refund system, beautiful country of Italy?