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.