I have two questions about recycling..

What do you put in the compost? is it ok to put all food waste a part from meat and fish or should I only put uncooked veggie and fruits?

Can you recycle other plastics waste other than PET and PE - what about PS, PP, PVC, etc.. ?
In UK I used to recycle all plastic sorts.. there was no indication of which type to throw in the recycling bin.

Thanks for sharing your info

Classical compost only uncooked agricultural produce. Some Swiss municipalities gassify the waste to produce energy. That process can cope with cooked food, meat, etc. Unless you are sure, only put raw agri in the compost bin.

PET is recycled into PET. All other plastics go into the garbage bag. Switzerland has special incinerators that can safely burn these plastics. Could be that UK has landfills or simple incinerators that cannot cope with plastics.

PET and PE are the only recyclable plastics in Switzerland, see this thread:
recycling plastic symbols

A search for compost results in this thread which contains the recommendations for Zurich:
What goes into the green bins?

Thanks, better to see things written down! my partner insists that we throw every food waste (a part from meat and fish) in the compost bin, and I am long trying to tell him that we should stick to:

For the plastic I am reassured by the fact that
I won't feel too guilty for every single piece of non-recyclable plastic that I throw in the normal waste..
(p.s. i still try not to buy them on the first place!)

dumb and silly newbie questions but for Bern:

- shampoo bottles - PET, anything else or normal trash ?
- plastic round thingie in which the Migros salads come - normal trash or any other special place ?
- compost ? (where / what do I need for this...sorry for probably repeating an already asked question; is there a special container for this outside my flat (I just moved here) ? do I dump the stuff all together in a plastic bag or anything similar ?
- oil bottles: where will these go ? I've read these are not normal glass or pet depending on the case
- plastic bags: normal trash ?
- private documents that I for example would be shredding in the future (like a terminated contract or an invoice that I don't want others to know about) still go as tiny pieces in the tied up package of paper stuff ? or ?
- old towels (deteriorated for ex.) go where ? or an old carpet ?

sorry for so many questions

The only thing I DON'T put in is meat, and meat by-products. Fish, cooked veg, etc. all go in.

Tom

Unfortunately this is in German only, but you can use Google to translate it. The extra pamphlet
"Kompostmerkblatt" states that all organic material is acceptable, even animal droppings in small quantities,

http://www.bern.ch/leben_in_bern/woh...n/kompostieren

Click here - this link is for your given location of Fribourg (although it is general info.), but specifically for Bern see here.

Hi ...... in zug it seems that only PET drinks bottles are recycled..... all the other plastics ( and i mean all ) get thrown into one large container.....do they burn this?? or does it go to landfill??

I have heard competing theories and wondered if anyone had some knowledge here...

Thanks

Many people who begin with compost end up with a mushy mess as they mainly put grass from the lawn mower in with a few bits of food - a disaster. I put layers of wet corrugated cardboard, torn up - it really helps the mix, and also recylce my newspapers this way, scrunching up each page until I've got a good layer. I did this last week-end as it helps insulate the worms from the frosts. Several times a year I add a good layer of horse manure (as a neighbour keeps her horses in our back field) - and I put in all vegetable waste, cooked or uncooked.

Some councils have special bins to place stuff for communal composting - in which case you should be able to put anything compostable in, including fish and meat as very large cummunal composting facilities get very very hot and will kill all germs, etc. But again, each area has its own policy (mind you, it is just as confusing in the UK).

Plastics recycling differs not only from K/Canton to K/C, but also from Gemeinde/Commune to G/C!! A nightmare really. Our commune has recently told us that we are not allowed to place recyclable plastics with the official recycling logo if it has contained any oil, shampoos and other toiletries, or washing liquids, as it contaminates the recycling process. For that reason i've stopped buying liquid washing detergent and have gone back to powders in cardboard boxes. I also buy refills for bleach and contionner and other stuff if at all possible. I have written to our Consumer Association for Suisse Romande and the WWF to try and find out more detail about this - and will report back when I get answers (if!).

New in Zurich and trying to get my head around recycling!

I read you can put all PET plastic in the recycling boxes at supermarkets. Can anyone please tell me what they do with all other non-PET plastics?
Do you just put this in your Zueri-sack?

Any help much appreciated!

Unfortunately there are currently no facilities in CH to recycle non drink grade PET (although the technology exists).

It must be drink bottle PET - oil, vinegar etc cannot be put in the same recycling stream and so are not currently recyclable in CH (even though, again, the technology exists to recycle them).

So yes, all non drinks PET and other plastics go in the rubbish.

Polystyrene packaging one can return to the store where you bought the article.

Yes. Thank you. Forgot about that but as far as I am currently aware, unless the polystyrene is taken to another country (which is possible) it is not recycled here.

White milk bottles go into a separate collection bin to the clear PET bottles. Migros offer these bins...

Same here for any plastic bottles which have contained any detergent, etc, like washing up liquid, washing liquid, softener, bleach, etc, even if they have got the PET logo. Which is why I have gone back to washing machine powder and only buy concentrated softener in soft pouch form which I dilute the one Comfort bottle i've had for a couple of years. Same for bleach.

Yep - as I said all drinks grade plastics (hard plastics not the bag linings of wine/apple juice boxes) are recyclable. All plastic has a PET logo on, but the issue is that drinks plastic is a "higher grade" of PET recyclable plastic than other plastics (roughly ..)

See www.petrecycling.ch (in De,Fr and It) for all you might ever want to know on the subject and more ....

You can recycle some non-drink PET bottles at some Migros. Have a look here: Recycling PET bottles (non drinkable)

Its a sad story here in CH really. Given right next door in Germany they recycle pretty much anything and everything, the swiss arent willing to swallow their pride and send stuff over to DE to get recycled. There are plenty of recycling facilities in the southernmost part of germany, right over the border...

We still have a container for these bottles at our local dechetterie. Not sure where they recycle them afterwards but I'd be happy to take yours for you if you want to go back to liquid detergent.