Ask a foreigner

[OliveJewel]

The one's I was on about were a combo of purple & yellow in a single pepper.

Those in the video look like they are at a farmers market.

 

[LuckiLee]

Some of J's family live in a dry county in the Bible belt. You have to drive to the next town to purchase. They still have what you would call speakeasy, people open their homes to neighbors/friends/family to drink.

 

[OliveJewel]

Took students to a landfill and transfer station today and learned that recycling is pretty much a sham in my state and in any state in which there is plenty of inexpensive land. China stopped buying recycling from North America and Europe (changed its allowable contamination of plastics from 5-10% to 0.5%) in 2018 and the market collapsed. Most recycling goes into landfills now unless land is scarce or expensive (i.e., California, New York, Hawaii). Even if you are very careful to only put out clean recycling if there is one or two businesses/households that contaminate the truck (they have cameras that monitor and flag for contamination) it will typically be diverted to the landfill because it’s too laborious to sort. There’s no way to know how much of your recycling goes into the landfill but the guide said typically well over half is contaminated. Landfills are subsidized by government so it’s very cheap to throw things away. The tour guide said that recycling motivation (through positive or negative reinforcement) works best in societies that have strong group identities and that Americans have strong individual identities which makes it challenging to motivate for the common good. (Understatement?!). He suggested that generally Americans are solely motivated by economic pressure (shocking, I know) and government subsidies determine the pressure.

Is recycling something that people care about where you live? Is it easy to do? Is it actually being done?

 

[Teasel]

Is recycling something that people care about where you live? Is it easy to do? Is it actually being done?

I have the impression things are similar here. We used to sell our recycling somewhere too, I don't remember where. But I can't say I blame them not wanting it.

I've the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Scandinavian countries might do better.

 

[Freddyt]

Do your grocery stores have a beer aisle?

This always makes me laugh. Because we don't have alcohol in grocery store at all. Partially because the provincial government used to run the liquor stores, which only changed to independent stores about 20 years ago. So, usually you walk across the parking lot to the grocery stores liquor store. (I do not in any way understand the difference if its in the store or in a separate store across the parking lot.)

Whats confusing is the legal age for drinking and cannabis is 18. So yeah, where legal age is 21 - beer in stores - 18 - hide it from the children....

 

[OliveJewel]

Are tacos a common food where you live?

 

[Freddyt]

Yes. Funny though - although US based fast food flourishes, taco shops (taco bell etc) do not. BUT start a real Taco (made from scratch) place and it's likely to succeed.

 

[Teasel]

Not common here, sadly. I really wish they were

 

[OliveJewel]

taco bell etc) do not.

No loss there IMO

 

[Friday]

Here, (where I am) in the US, yes.

In most of Latin America? NOPE! (Which fried my brain. Argentina, especially, it’s all meat & potatoes, there) Ditto in most of the places I’ve lived in Europe/Asia. But I was expecting that in the EU & asiatic. I was NOT expecting that in Latin America.

 

[OliveJewel]

Is treacle tart kind of like pecan pie without the pecans?

 

[Freida]

I know it's sometimes hard for people to get how really, really big the US is - so here's an example. I left the west coast to go to North Dakota (pretty much the midpoint of the US) and it took 22 hours (ya, 22 hours!) of driving to get there! Still cheaper than flying tho! LOL