Here is a toilet in our apartment. There are two buttons on the wall above the toilet, a small one and a big one. They give you a small flush or a big one, depending on your needs. The water does not swirl it comes from all around the rim.
Also typically in bathrooms with just toilet and sinks (washroom) there is only a cold water faucet, no hot water. This is the case not just at home but also in public places.
Energy efficiency is very important here. Besides the small and large flushes, many homes and apartments do not have clothes dryers. They dry their clothes on drying racks or clothes lines. It is very common to see clothes lines on apartment balconies. It is not considered an eye sore, it is just normal life. Many people walk or ride their bicycle to work or school. Their are bike lanes everywhere. They have their own little stop lights and everything here. Cars are much smaller. A VW Golf is a family car. It is common to see one, or a similarly sized car, with 3-5 people in it. There are also a lot of diesel vehicles here. The fuel or engines must be different, though, because they are cleaner than Mark’s diesel Jetta. Mark’s Jetta or my Civic are on the larger end of most vehicles here. There are larger vehicles, but not a lot.
You also pay for grocery bags. Most people try to bring their own bags to the store so they do not have to buy them. Then they can carry the 1-2 bags home as they walk or the bags can be strapped onto the back of the bike with bungee cords or in the saddle bags on the back of some bikes.
There are central recylcing drop-offs. There are brown boxes that look like the blue mailboxes in the US, but they lead to large underground bins of brown glass, white glass, paper or plastic. Trucks come and pick up the material from the underground bins.
We also have a green compost bin. Food waste goes in it. No protein or fat though, just fruit/veggie waste. The compost bin goes out with the garbage bag and it is picked up. We have made it a week on one garbage bag even with a little one and disposable diapers. The garbage bags are about 4 gallons in size and you also have to buy them They are sold at the service desk at the grocery store and are about $1.60 each and sold in bundles of 12.
