A lot of goods which come in re-usable (not just recyclable) bottles or jars, both glass and plastic, come at a surcharge (e.g. are artificially overpriced) which you are reimbursed with when you return the empty bottle. Similarly plastic bags in food shops are generally not free (they cost a few cents), so people do re-use plastic or cloth bags much more. In GB you seem to get a plastic bag with anything. Last year we spent several months back in London, and were mightily amused when one of the big supermarket chains gave out free re-usable bags and ‘half the nation’ walked around with “we’re doing our bit for recycling”-smiles on their faces.

In terms of penalties and incentives, in Germany you can be fined if caught willfully disposing of all rubbish in the wrong bins but it is rare. In some regions of Germany, though not where I live (it differs slightly from federal state to state), I’m told that refuse lorries even weigh the amount of household rubbish collected at each house and one pays one’s refuse rates according to the amount of rubbish one produces.

The iPhone isn’t for everyone, but I think it is for a lot more people than other devices.

Hopefully 2.1 will fix the crashing problems, as having a crash while typing an email is just plain annoying, during a phone call would be even worse. I’ve had my Curve for about 10 months and no crashes, iTouch for 6 months and it crashes once a week, mostly while opening apps. While developing might be nice, that’s not what a normal end user looks for when choosing a device. Just to end my rant, the iPhone release was pathetic. Lines and lines of people for no reason but to get a phone that most didn’t even get (apparently Apple can’t estimate needed server power very well). There are still lines today at my local Apple Store for the phone, it’s nice that when the BB Bold comes out I can just go on and order online (like most of the tech world does today)