Waste Management in Switzerland: Recycle, or Else! (Part 1)

What if you got fined for putting your old computer in the trash? That could happen in Switzerland. I found this out while visiting my sister, who lives in Chavornay. This small village near Lausanne is perched on an ancient plateau between the Alps and the Jura Mountains. Humans have been living here for 14,000 years. I wonder what the place would look like if they’d been throwing out today’s trash all that time!

Minimizing household inconvenience is not this community’s goal. No curbside recycling here; residents bring their recyclables to a central waste and recycling center for sorting. Success requires economic incentives, hence the fines for non-compliance.

I accompanied my brother-in-law with his recyclables to Chavornay’s recycling center. We drove a load of paper, plastic and glass down a small hill, past a few old houses and farm buildings, some hiding walls originally built around the 1200s, and passed through an open gate into what looked like an outdoor warehouse next to railroad tracks.

There in the open air, I saw dumpsters so large they reminded me of the cargo containers we see stacked in the US as a reminder of our international trade deficit. One dumpster held old broken furniture. Another had branches and logs. A third had old carpet. There were smaller dumpsters for glass, plastic, compostable materials, and a slew of other stuff. Under a small roof stood barrels and bins for people to throw out all sorts of things -- batteries, household appliances, tools, cell phones, computers, and yes, right in the middle of all this was a half-filled barrel of unwanted medicines. I looked around for a law enforcement presence, but found none.

It's remarkable what this community recycles. I visited their website to see what they say about it. There's predictable stuff like:

• Paper
• Glass
• Plastics
• Metals

Then there's less obvious stuff:

• Large items, like skis, furniture – tables, couches, carpeting, mattresses, box springs, treated wood.
• Household appliances – lighting fixtures, mixers, drills.
• Clothes.
• Oils – vegetable, mineral, motor and machine oils.
• Compostable materials – food scraps, plants, kitty litter, ashes, sawdust, turfgrass leaves, branches, etc.
• Inert household materials such as rocks, stone, porcelain.

And then there's a whole category of materials that may be dropped off at the recycling center, but businesses are also required to accept them back:

• Light bulbs
• Batteries
• Electronics – TVs, stereos, computers, telephones, etc.
• Stoves, washers, refrigerators, freezers
• Household hazardous wastes
• Expired medicines
• Tires

Next time: So what's left for the garbage can? What happens to the materials once they leave the center?

John Haugland works in the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office.

Comments

[mickey]

That really just blows my mind. Why are we so far behind?

Incredible.