Waste and the circular economy

Die Recyclingquote is where an English reader goes wrong without noticing, because the second half looks like a word they already own. German die Quote is not a quote. It is never a citation — that is das Zitat — and never the price a firm gives you for a job, which is das Angebot or der Kostenvoranschlag. It is a share of a whole, stated as a rate: die Arbeitslosenquote is the unemployment rate, and die Recyclingquote is the proportion of waste that goes back into use. The English sense of quota exists too, as in die Frauenquote, a minimum share of women; but on this list the word measures and prescribes nothing. So a council that meldet eine Recyclingquote is reporting a percentage, and the useful question is not who said it but where it was counted: at the gate of the sorting plant, or at the point where das Rezyklat comes out.