One day Diane said, "You know what I've noticed over here as we drive around? No litter." She's right, there is almost no trash along the roads and recycling has been a way of life at least in the south of France for at least then past five years. I'm sure it's much longer than that, but we've only been coming since 2005.
In Ansouis there are recycling bins - for paper, glass, and tin/plastic at the bottom of the hill leading up into the village. There are two additional bins off to the side - think they are for specialty paper products such as cardboard. Not sure about those, but we made several trips - "clank", "clank" (trying to approximate the sound of wine bottles jostling in the bag) - down the hill in our two weeks. Beside the main parking lot by the Mairie, there were two other bins for regular household garbage. There was garbage pickup in our small village at least three times a week - sometimes with a large garbage truck, sometimes a small pickup. We could hear the large truck coming up the hill, so a few times we just handed a bag to a guy on the back of the truck as he passed by. Yes, the street was that narrow.
There are recycling and garbage depots in every town and village. In rural areas they are located at convenient places along the roads. On our two previous visits on a rural gîte, we made several visits to the recycling depot at a crossroads down the hill as we headed out for the day.
The last part of our checkout process at Chez Barbara was a stop at the recycling depot in Ansouis.
