Tuesday 26 June 2012

Do train stations still have recycling bins for papers?

I remember years ago - maybe 15 or so - that a big splash was made about the introduction of recycling bins on train platforms in Sydney so that newspaper readers would have somewhere to dump their paper at the end of their journey. In those days, many newspaper readers just left their paper on their seat when they reached their station. Other passengers were free to pick it up and read it, or push it onto the floor. Unfortunately, a lot ended up on the floor, and carriages at the end of the day looked like the aftermath of a university college newspaper fight. The idea of putting paper bins on platforms was to encourage people to carry the paper off the train and chuck it in a big skip. I'm not sure how successful it was, but the rubbish problem was bad enough to make it a decent idea.

I pondered this today as I had to catch a bus, and I noticed that not a single person on the bus was reading a paper. Most were reading something, but it was either a book, a Kindle, an iPad or an iPhone. There was even a solitary laptop. As I had to stand, I had a peek over the shoulders of those with iPads and noticed that all were reading The Australian. Yes, it's a small sample, but I thought it instructive. There was no rubbish on the bus - there were no newspapers to be left behind. Not even a copy of the free Metro commuter paper.

I'm wondering if trains have gone the same way.

Just a thought.

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I should have added that, knowing the public sector and how slowly it moves, there will still be bins for recycling newspapers on train stations 50 years after the last newspaper is printed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Last time I caught a train was when the Olympics was on in 2000. I think I remember just before the Olympics that they took all the rubish bins of the platforms so that no bombs could be placed in them.

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