Waste collection in Bolivia

January 11, 2008 By 1 Comment

After reading about the dustcart being sent to Bolivia, I read today in Business News Americas that the Bolivian government is investing large sums of money in waste collection, although the article does not exactly say where the improvements are to be made.

Water and sewage services are to be improved as well.

Did you know that the pipes taking the sewage out of the buildings are so thin, that you have to put used toilet paper into a rubbish bin rather than town the toilet itself? It’s something that takes getting used to…

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Pipes being laid in Sucre, July 2000

Filed Under: Bolivia, News

Die Lohnsteuerkarte

January 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment

The Lohnsteuerkarte is an A5 piece of card that you receive when you first register in Germany.

The card contains your name and address, but also your tax class, the number of children you have and your confession.

When you start work, it is important to give it to you employer as soon as possible, so that the tax can be deducted from your wages correctly.

If you leave your job during the year, the card is returned to you with a printout of the tax paid. Otherwise, at the end of each year you receive the printout from your employer to enable you to complete your tax return.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Disclaimer: this podcast is a simple explanation for non-native speakers.  For tax advice, please contact a Steuerberater.

Filed Under: German Words Explained, Podcasts, Tax Tagged With: ,

A lorry powered by… chocolate?

January 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment

It sounds (or should that be tastes?) too good to be true. Yes, it really is a lorry powered by chocolate. Well, almost.

I came across this story on the BBC News website and it sounds like a crazy, also an innovative idea.

Put quite simply: the waste left over from cocoa when making chocolate is being recycled into bio-diesel. To make people aware of the project, the lorry is being driven from the UK quite literally to Timbuktu.

Why do I like this project? Well, since I started following news items about biofuels I have probably seen as many arguments against them as I have seen in favour of them.

This project seems to defeat most of the arguments against them: nothing is being grown especially to make the fuel, no trees are being chopped down.  The only question remaining is: does it take more or less energy to process the waste into bio-diesel than it did to process it before?

Filed Under: Bio-Ethanol Tagged With: ,

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