In praise of Swiss garbage

If you are looking for a well thought-out exercise in cause and effect, you need look no further than Swiss garbage collection - it is impressive!

You can buy, at any store at the counter (not off the shelf), the plastic bin liners for your district. These are potentially the most expensive plastic bags that you will buy at about CHF25 ($24, €18 or £15) for 10 pieces. You can put anything in these, and it will be re-cycled by the city, but you can appreciate that if you put everything in it, you need to be rich...

What happens if you use your own (cheaper) bin liner? The collection folks will go through your rubbish and find something that identifies you, and you will receive a polite letter telling you that if you do it again, you will be fined.

But you don't HAVE to spend your inheritance on garbage collection. Very much of what you have is re-cyclable. There are collection points in easy reach across the city for glass of various colours and metal tins. These were large above ground bins until recently, but have recently been dug into underground silos, with a small, neat pillarbox for the 'goods'. Plastic milk and joghurt cartons, and PET bottles are collected at special collection points in supermarkets. Paper and cardboard are collected frequently from the street outside your dwelling, and you can either use the free, supplied calendar to tell you when they will be collected, or you can register your mobile and receive a message the night before collection. The paper and cardboard needs to be tied up neatly with string, and left outside on the streetside by about 7 in the morning. Twice a year, there are similar services for old clothes and leather goods, and these are channeled to charities who can either sell them and use the money, or ship them to countries which need them. Bags are provided, with the collection date on them, and you get the usual SMS the night before.

All of these services are free of charge, and if you use them, the bin-bag lasts MUCH longer.

It works. Being lazy is expensive, being conscientious is cheap, and quite frankly, it's garbage - it's just not worth getting into a lengthy discussion with the authorities about it.

A street that never sleeps

We live on a very cool street - it starts with the name itself: Ankerstrasse. We've always liked the name and felt "anchored" into something solid.

That is until M came round and casually remarked our street had dropped its first letter: "W"

We've never been able to look at it the same way again...

Then, the street setting is a story of itself: opposite the Court House and one street far from the red light district. I guess it makes sense...

Oh, and on the direct route of all fire brigade cars. And their sirens are at exactly the same level as our bedroom window.

Then we have 2 of the city's most cool bars: one underneath us, the other opposite. One has jazz concerts every Thursday, the other one is packed Thursdays to Sunday. And with the recent heat wave and smoking ban, all parties have moved out onto the street.

Under our bedroom window.

And since we can't get that much sleep anyway, we lie in our beds and listen. And collect stories and snapshots of life.

The other night was a couple breaking up. He was Italian, very loquacious, and slightly pissed. To the point where he took his speech up and down the street, its reverberations bouncing up and down the walls. But we didn't mind, as 3 languages were switched with ease between the two lovers gone sour - we took it as a free language course.

Last week it got all dramatic, with Police car chasing, car crash, yells, arrests and the crowd of regulars, staring, commenting, betting I guess. It was 2 am.

When spirits calmed down, Police investigating team came to take photos, measure and chat loudly on the cell phone. Under our bedroom window.

We got to fully understand the local entrepreneurial spirit when 3 ladies of the night tried selling their services. To the Police officers.

Under our bedroom window.