i too find it extremely strange that recycling is so hard in switzerland

in australia each house gets 2x 240L bins. the green one is for general waste and is emptied once per week, the yellow one is for recycling and is emptied once every second week. with just my girlfriend and i we just about fill the recycling bin every two weeks.



i really don't look forward to the complicated and time consuming recycling rituals in switzerland!! i definitely think i will recycle less because of it.

if you make recycling easy then more people recycle more things. my swiss girlfriend certainly recycles more stuff in australia because it is easier for her. i would have thought more recycling is a good thing that swiss people would support?? but i guess not everything is always as you'd expect in swiss

As you are paying by volume for the rubbish you dispose of, then financially speaking recycling is easier. I'm sure that would make sense to an economist.

I live in deepest Zurich, and we dispose of our paper by putting it into one or more of those CHF 0.30 paper "bags for life". Obviously, that works for shredded paper. Before I found out such use of paper bags does not come with the death penalty, I would pack shredded paper into envelopes and put normal paper above and below.

Just get used to it folks...its highly annoying in Switzerland for sure but its the way of the future so its best to get used to it. In Germany im forced to separate evvrryything and that I didnt do for my first few months, but with the garbage men, cops, and neighbors constantly harrassing me, I finally took notice and the habit...

Besides, its how these places stay so spanking clean

Well, you northern types are behind compared to Ticino.

We don't have pickup days, just bring your trash, bottles, paper, etc. to one of the many convenient places as often as you like, whenever you like!

Tom

That's just so Italian.

Not picking on you specifically, however your post illustrates my "counter-rail" nicely.

Why does everything have to be put on a plate for you?

One of the things I do like about CH, is that there is a greater sense of personal responsibility about life. One has to take responsibility for making sure one does a tiny bit of recycling.

It's called social responsibility, and I for one think that the effort demanded for recycling is actually not that great in the big scheme of things. It also makes me feel a little better about life in general, knowing that I've contributing in trying to reduce the tonnes of waste we produce as members of the human race.

I'd guess that those complaining also grumble about the "nanny-stating" (if that's a real term) by governments. Well make up your minds.

__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

No that's Napoli!

You won't see stuff like that in northern Italy, and certainly not Ticino!

Hell, even our trash cans are underground! (and manufactured locally)

Tom

OMG!

And I thought the alps were real...

Whatever, recycling in Switzerland is NOT organized on the federal level, not even on the cantonal level, but usually on a strictly municipal level. And everything depends on WHAT is to be recycled. For details you best consult the WEBsite of your place of residence

In the Zurich-area you can
- get rid of glass-bottles in quite many places Mon-Sat 0700-1900
- get rid of pet-bottles in outlets of Coop, Migros, Aldi, Lidl, Spar
- assorted trash and paper in those "centres" (ASSORTED ! )

Hmmm, well we were bawled at for trying to get rid of some paper in a Migros a few years back. And I mean "some", not a truckload. The cashier stopped what she was doing and screamed like we were stealing from the shop. Since then we've kept all of our waste paper in a bag and we try to bundle it up for collection.

Never understood why Switzerland is different to Germany - where I used to live in Germany there was a huge skip (with a roof) for waste paper. No such thing here. Unless I've not seen them.

Come to Ticino, they are everywhere!

We have two just for our village (1500 people)!

Tom

Plenty here too- and others for bottles, plastics and cardboard. NO collections though.

that's a great rant (rail?), but not everyone shares your sense of social responsibility.... otherwise switzerland would recycle more!

given recycling is considered by almost everyone to be a "good thing" then i would suggest to you that it's worth being pragmatic and open to the idea that other places (ticino, australia) have more effective approaches to recycling than most of switzerland... and perhaps if switzerland recognised this they'd have more people doing more recycling and that'd be a "good thing".

if i am honest, i think that recycling should be collected from your house (every day, from inside your house, perhaps by attractive ladies dressed in bikinis, and you get a biscuit for every empty bottle you give them) and it is the general waste that you should have to lump to migros/wherever. that would be more fair.

In Glattbrugg, you can bring your old paper to the "Sammelstelle Rohr"
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http://www.opfikon.ch/de/verwaltung/...&object_id=734
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and in the City of Zurich you can take the stuff to
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http://maps.google.de/?daddr=Rolfbos...047%20Z%FCrich
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http://www.rolfbossard.ch/
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If you bring it TO THEM it is free, if they have to collect it, it is as indicated

Don't blame me, it's in the title of the thread

What on earth makes you think CH doesn't recycle as much as elsewhere?

Just the fact that they have different disposal/collection methods and don't do put it on a plate for you? That's hardly objective.

If you live in Basel, you get a guide telling you what needs to go where - none of the following should go in the rubbish bags, and indeed you could be the subject of a fine in some instances:
glass - recycling stations
garden waste - specific pick-up days
tins - recycling stations
large metal - specific pick-up days
paper & cardboard - specific pick-up days
furniture/wood - on demand (need sticker) + 1-2 days per year
batteries - recylcing stations or shops
electricals - electrical shops
PET - shops (usually supermarkets)
chemicals/building stuff - specific drop off places

All that leaves is food waste (and you can get a wormery or compost bin) and food packaging that does meet any of the above criteria.

As a family of 5, with a compost bin, we struggle to fill a 35L bag in a week. The rest is recycled.

If we have too much, then we drop it off at the recycling station near the St Louis border - anything that the city picks up (e.g. pet, glass, paper, carbord, tins etc.) can be dropped off for free, and you have to pay a relatively small surcharge for the rest.

So I repeat: what exactly is your measure of "could do more", and this is more about personal standards (for want of a better word) than recycling itself?

Yeah, well, you'll not get any major argument from me, however, 1) I'm usually at work, 2) my wife might object, and 3) I don't want some hunk in a skimpy speedo doing the job - double standard I know, but hey, no one is perfect

__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

Just thinking how M. may be looking at you after reading that!

Ahhh I wouldn´t push my luck, she may decide to spend her time and rented car doing something else

Quite amazing, huh? I would need years of practicing to achieve this perfection, but I had to learn fast, or they would not pick up my bundles, 2 times happened

unfortunately i don't have any scientific evidence, buuut...

my girlfriend has moved from CH to australia, and i noticed that at first she threw out a lot of things that could be recycled... but after she realised that recycling was no harder than normal garbage she begun to recycle a lot more.

i have also visited her family in CH several times and i noticed that they throw out a lot more things than i would recycle in australia. is it possible that her family puts everything into the one bag in the house and bin dives later on to sort out all the recyclables?

i have also visited lots of her friends in CH several times and noticed the same.

now i'll readily admit that this is only one group of people and it's possible that they are all bad/lazy recyclers..... but that's also my point. making recycling easy turns bad recyclers into good ones and more recycling makes mother earth happy. and we all know it's better to have a happy mother!

There was post on forum about some municipalities not sorting their garbage for recycling. Maybe you got lucky to visit such town.