still. 250chf for recycling a day early is quite harsh.

correction, just north east

Alas, OP ;ives in the north west!

Tom

ayee, indeed I always had the impression that Romande is much alike France

That thread is like "No, I didn't park in the no parking area. I parked in the parking area without a valid ticket for it so I don't want to pay the fine for the no parking area" (when the fine is the same for both)

Some of these recycling places have video. There’s one - near us - glass, aluminum, metal and oil. It’s open every day but Sunday, there’s a video camera somewhere. I don’t know how they figure out who is recycling in off hours if you don’t drive up in a car though.

depends on the rules. But I have seen my ex husband get away with so much rule breaking by now that sometimes I see these comments and don't know if I should laugh or cry

Face recognition?

Ours also takes any type of paper, including cardboard, as it gets burnt.

Tom

..said just about every non-violent petty criminal ever.

That.

That's not what the letter says, as per your initial post. Now, of course they may have made an error and provided the false reason, but if I had to bet either on what you assume or what's mentioned in the letter I'd bet on the letter anyday.

Putting paper in the correct bin on a Sunday does seem very victimless though. I can't quite see who would be the victim of this act

I checked at the dechetterie, and paper and cardboard definitely do go together in the same skip, so the letter definitely is wrong

The little old lady with supernatural hearing who you cruelly wake up from her Sunday mid-afternoon nap while making an almost imperceptible bang as the newspaper hits the bottom of the bin.

The victim of the crime is anyone (with or without supernatural hearing or a vindictive attitude towards those who commit minor transgressions) who could have heard any part of what you did: the sound of your driving there, of your car door banging, (and some drivers leave the engine idling while they jump out), the klinking of the chain, the thud of the bundle, and all that again as you leave. And anyone who breathed in the fumes. And the costs to every tax-payer of having set up the system and of enforcing it.

While that may seem petty, the Sunday recycling rule is part of a larger network of laws aimed at keeping Sundays and nights quiet.

This is no longer primarily from a Christian religious perspective, but is so that those who have worked all week (especially in noisy or in stressful places) can fairly much count on one each night and one day per week of relative tranquility, to recuperate.

If you zoom out a bit, you could see your adhering to the Sunday recycling rule as part of your contribution towards keeping down the costs, for society, of medical treatments and disability pensions for physical and psychological ailments resulting from stress or lack of proper rest.

Look, and yes, I'm aware am going to get a lot of groans for this.

Luckily, there are a lot of rules in Switzerland. That's why we stick-it out here - the efficiency, reliability, good quality of life etc. etc. etc.

Otherwise, many of us would ask: "WTF am I doing here?"

Luckily, such things as depositing trash on a non-depositing day are followed-up on.

If not, then how about the people that rent a flat opposite a recycling depot that have also to live with the noise on a Sunday? If it's allowed with one paper-depot, then how should that affect e.g. the bottle deposits

No. You came here knowing the rules, and accepted them.
We have all lived through it in some degree or another (and believe me it's also taken adjustment for me), and for some reason decide to stay here long-term.

The rules are inhibiting, yes. But once you get used to them, and learn to live them, they contribute to many of the good, reliable things that keep us here.

When I was a kid in Australia rules were meant to be broken

But pretty much all of those things would have happened had I driven to the Dechetterie and not put the paper in! And it's not a crime to drive on Sundays.

While that may seem petty, the Sunday recycling rule is part of a larger network of laws aimed at keeping Sundays and nights quiet.



My contribution would be tiny. If Swiss people were that stressed by the sound of a car on a Sunday, hearing some paper drop would really not contribute.

I get it, Switzerland is a different place to the UK, and its attitude to by-laws is at odds with the Anglo-Saxon approach, and I have to get used to that.

I agree with the rest of your post, but that's the only bit I disagree with. I don't think I (probably like most) did know the rules before I moved here. I'm learning them as I go along