Would rather, Would Prefer

 

"The world has limited resources.

I'd rather recycle, than waste second hands materials"

When we are talking about specifics, would rather is used as an alternative to would prefer to followed by an infinitive. 

Would rather is very common in spoken English and is often abbreviated to 'd rather. 

It is used in this form with all personal pronouns:

I'd / you'd / he'd / she'd / we'd / they'd rather…

examples dialogue: 

- I don't have space at home to differentiate my rubbish.  

- I'd rather think about how many raw materials you would save if you recycled

- Nowadays, I'd rather make a change in the school organization system, to privilege teaching kids also what are the needing and requirements of this new society.

NOTE
Would rather is followed by a bare infinitive without to. 
Would rather it can be followed by a past tense when we want to involve other people in the action, even though it has a present or future meaning. 

examples:
- Shall we go out for a drink this evening?  
- No, I'd rather we ate at home, if you don't mind. 

- Shall I write to Marco and tell him that we've planned our holiday?
- I'd rather you didn't. 

-My father would rather we went on holiday close to here, rather than going to South-Africa.

ALSO

Rather than means instead of and can be used in combination with would prefer to and would rather. 

example: 

- Rather than lose precious time discussing it now, I think we should go at the meeting and share our resolutions with the rest of the group.

Would prefer

Would rather and would prefer, can be used interchangeably. 

When we are talking about general preferences, prefer is followed by verb-ing, 

example:

- I prefer listening to music to watching TV.  
- I'd rather listen to music than watch TV.