I were on the same boat when I came from South Africa first time to Switzerland where we all were (maybe with some minor exceptions) used to throwing away our rubbish in specific designated for this purpose place for garbage collection in the security complex.... No one had to bother to make sure that glass needs to be separated from metals and paper or plastic.

Here towards my surprise we were struggling a bit with these new for us recycling rules, since not in all the countries all over the world they apply.

I quickly learnt that different materials should be recycled accordingly but always struggled with glass and plastics. I discovered the following which might be helpful for people moving to small villages:

- glass recycling bins in different colours white (weiss), brown(braun), green(grün) you should be able to identify next to Gemeinde in your area, same concerns metal cans next to Gemeinde as well,
- plastic bottles can be recycled in COOP or MIGROS and specially designated for that purpose bins outside (blue colour),
- all the bags purchased from Gemeinde or MIGROS have colour code for the given location (e.g white colour for Zürich area) and shouldnt contain any of the above,
- paper should be cut to the pieces and wrapped prefferably with the string (buy reel in MIGROS or COOP) and it is collected once per month with prior announcment note sticked on the wall two days before actual collection,
- any other bags containing grass or refuse from gardening or leaves they should also go to designated for that purpose boxes.

Initially it takes a bit of sniffing and eavesdropping to see how the neighbours do that but it is possible to learn and it makes life more bearable afterwards for everyone . I heard of extreme cases of the people who recycled notoriously wrong then the ''garbage police'' searches for any hints in order to get ot know where the culprit lives to be able to fine him...