France has launched a program to make its citizens more aware of the mountains of household waste they produce each year and to catch up with neighboring countries in terms of recycling habits.

Japan Today (an unusual source for information on France) reports that each French person now throws out, on average, 360 kilograms of trash a year - 40 kgs more than a decade ago - and only 12% is recycled and 6% transformed into compost, according to the ecology ministry.

The aim of the new EUR 2.5 million campaign is to reduce that amount by 15% over the next five years and by nearly a third by 2015.

Ecology Minister Nelly Olin urged the public to spurn supermarket plastic bags by using caddies instead, and to think about the increasing amount of packaging they are throwing out daily. Changes in lifestyle are largely to blame for the growing tower of trash. According to the ministry, the number of receptacles left over from frozen dinners, for instance, has become a significant problem for municipalities.

They have seen their rubbish collection and recycling costs double over the past 10 years to a total of 5.2 billion euros a year, according to the Agence for the Environment and Energy Management.

France, says Japan Today, lags behind most of its neighbours in implementing environmentally friendly rubbish disposal. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands all have systems of sorting household waste for recycling