Every right minded, forward thinking citizen of the world has to recycle; that is an accepted fact across the planet.
The theory of recycling waste matter is widely recognized as the only way to conserve energies and resources for future generations and save our world from certain extinction. I accept that, I have no problem with it and I am very happy to go along with all the arguments which support recycling in all its forms.
What I cannot accept, is the amount of floor space it takes up in my kitchen. There is a bin for plastic, a bin for paper, and a bin for stuff I cannot make up my mind about because it looks like paper but behaves like plastic and feels like fabric. There is a bin for glass bottles which is four times the size of the bins for everything else because we drink a lot in my house. (Sometimes we get drunk and confused enough to place plastic bottles in the glass bin because the contents have the same effect.)
There is a bin for metal caps, which is tiny because we tend to prefer cans for beer and soft drinks, and there is a bin for corks which is overflowing (we are saving them to build a boat and at the rate, we drink wine around here we should have a fleet by the winter).
There is a big plastic hanger full of plastic supermarket bags and another full of thicker plastic bags which we use for garden waste, which we also submit for recycling. In the corner, there is a huge pile of magazines that nobody remembers to take to the paper skip on the road into town, and it, therefore, resembles a paper igloo. I comfort myself that in the event of the Bank repossessing the house, we are fully equipped to construct a papier mache three bedroomed detached.
My kitchen measures about fifteen square meters and at least nine of them are dedicated to saving the world.