Garbage containers in Switzerland. There are no landfills in Switzerland

Typically, tourists who have visited Switzerland admire the cleanliness of the country's cities and villages, but are rarely interested in how this is achieved.

The waste sorting system, already practiced in many countries around the world, has been taken absolutely to the extreme in Switzerland. Almost to the point of absurdity. They sort everything that can be sorted.

This system knows no exceptions - everyone is required to put garbage in different containers. This is a complete democracy where everyone participates. And this complete absence democracy, where no one’s objections and discussions are accepted: if you don’t agree, pay a fine. Such an approach to waste disposal is only possible in the Helvetica Confederation. That's the mentality. Everyone likes to live clean.

The fact that you are rich does not elevate you above the law. It is not uncommon to see citizens disembarking from a Porsche and unloading it without an inferiority complex. empty bottles to the container delivery point.

Switzerland leads the world in the number of bottles returned - more than 90% of containers are returned to factories according to recycling glass The program for the acceptance and recycling of used glass began in 1972 and is still being successfully implemented.

Only by returning some beer bottles to the store can you get your deposit back. In other cases, those who hand over bottles do not receive anything for it. But at the same time, they still have to remove the caps and sort the bottles and jars depending on the color of the glass. White, brown, green - separately.

Paper is recycled separately from cardboard (cardboard recycling is more expensive), so citizens are required to return one separately from the other. Almost a third of printed products produced in the country are returned to recycling collection points.

No one would think of throwing used batteries in the trash. Therefore, 60% of all batteries sold in Switzerland are returned and not thrown into the bin.

PET bottles are rented separately, old electrical appliances and household appliances are rented separately, construction waste, separately - fluorescent lamps, separately - tin cans (those who sell them are required to press the tin themselves using a magnetic press), separately - animal corpses (you have to pay for this, but burying them is prohibited), separately - leftovers vegetable oil, separately - the remains of engine oil (it is strictly forbidden to change the oil in your own car - this will be done for you at a technical station for 50 francs). The list alone becomes scary.

You don’t have to do this, but throw everything in the trash bin, you say. Can. But then you will have to go broke on the tax that is levied on every kilogram of waste. A stamp indicating payment of the tax is affixed to each garbage bag. Throwing away five kilograms of garbage costs 2-3 francs (price varies depending on the canton). Therefore, most local residents take everything they can to recycling collection points, where they can be given old computer or an old baby stroller costs nothing.

There is even an exaggerated example of how to properly throw away a used tea bag: the label goes to the cardboard, the bag itself goes to old paper, tea leaves - into the compost, a paper clip - into the used metal, and a thread - into a marked garbage bag. One could say that this is a joke... but not in Switzerland.

There were and are craftsmen who are trying to get rid of waste without labeling it. But even these people had a handle on them—the garbage police. Specialists with help modern technologies analyze garbage left in the wrong place or without paying taxes - they find the violator (this is not a joke) and fine him/her. The fines are high. The New Zurich newspaper wrote about a case when a man, on the way to work, simply threw household garbage in paper bags out of the car window. The police tracked him down.

The violator was tried and fined: 6,000 francs for waste disposal and cleaning the route, 3,000 francs for breaking the law and 530 francs for court costs. Total, 9530 francs for the trick! This is a very cruel punishment by Swiss standards, as everyone lovingly counts each rappen. That's the mentality.

In the 80s, when garbage labeling was introduced only in the southeast of the country, the phenomenon of so-called garbage tourism began to spread. On weekends, people took their families, filled their trunks with the waste accumulated over the week, and drove to another part of the country for a picnic. And they traveled around the country and threw away garbage for free. Over 3,000 tons of “illegal” bags of waste were transported to Zurich alone per day. Therefore, all cantons and communities had to introduce a tax on garbage.

Back in the 80s of the twentieth century environmental situation in Switzerland was catastrophic - all rivers and lakes are polluted with phosphates and nitrates - heavy metals, it was rapidly decreasing, and the growing consumer society produced a huge amount of garbage. Very soon, residents began to choke on their own garbage, industrial and agricultural pollution. In such a small area there were no large areas to dump waste and forget about it.

It was then that the question arose of developing a new environmental policy, which they began to implement with pedantry. It took two decades, but the result exceeded all expectations. Switzerland is now one of the most environmentally friendly clean countries world, with developed public transport and clean mountain air. You can safely drink water from any lake and, of course, from the tap.

What is the reason for this success? The reason is that they are the state. The Swiss set themselves the task of cleaning up their own country, and they succeeded. The rest was just a matter of time.

The conclusion is simple... people wanted it - people did it!

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One of the things that bothers me in Russia after living abroad for a short time is the attitude towards garbage. Not only is it customary in our homeland to throw it away wherever we want, but there is also almost no culture of recycling it. This not only pollutes the environment, but also causes enormous harm to the economy.

It's very nice that in last couple Over the years, initiatives have begun to appear on separate waste collection, the introduction of environmentally friendly packaging, etc. But we are still only at the very beginning of the journey. There are still stinking garbage chutes in our entrances, and landfills are a cruel mess.

From this point of view, Switzerland is a clinical example: the country is moving by leaps and bounds towards the complete recycling of all waste. Of course, this is not cheap and imposes a huge number of responsibilities on each person. Today’s important post is about how this works from the point of view of a simple man in the street who wants to keep his home and his country clean.

First the foreplay. Since 2000, Switzerland has completely banned the organization of landfills on its territory. Given the lack of suitable land, this was the only possible solution, and therefore there are only two choices left: either recycle the garbage or incinerate it. The organization of collection and processing was handed over to private companies, which helped Switzerland for short period to become one of the leaders in waste disposal in Europe. In 2009, just over 30% of garbage was recycled, and today - more than 50%. At the same time, according to separate groups this figure can reach 80%.

On the graph: Landfilled - landfills; Incinerated with energy recovery - combustion to produce energy; Recycled - recycling.

Many tourists who rented apartments in Europe have already encountered the need to sort garbage. As a rule, these are standard paper-plastic-glass-other. However, if you live in the country permanently, then you will definitely have a lot of more interesting waste. The rules for separate waste collection are communicated to all citizens with Swiss precision. Having stopped at new apartment, you immediately receive a booklet in the mail about what needs to be thrown away and where. The number of categories is about fifty.

Every self-respecting citizen has several containers at home for various waste. You can buy them at any store, including your local IKEA. In them we accumulate paper and plastic bottles.

In separate boxes we store batteries, fuses, bottle caps, glass, clothes, and so on - more details to come. And all the garbage that you can’t or are too lazy to sort must be put in a special bag, which is sold in stores at a price of 2 francs per piece (about 75 rubles). This money goes towards further sorting and recycling of waste from these bags.

If you do not use such packages, then you will face a significant fine - according to rumors, it can reach up to 10,000 francs. In the German-speaking part of the country, stories are especially popular that a special “garbage detective” tracked the offender using a scrap of letter, an invoice or a box from an online store. In the French part where we live, such rigidity is not observed.

These white bags, paper, glass and organic waste You can throw it in the trash right next to your house. Everyone in their own tank.

Pay attention to the design - the tanks themselves are underground. When the washing machine arrives, it simply grabs the bin by the “handle” and, without any strain or stink, dumps the bags into a large container. The process is controlled by just one person using a large remote control.

Everything that cannot be thrown away near the house must be on our own deliver to special items collection As a rule, near large supermarkets you can get rid of plastic bottles, batteries, light bulbs, CDs, packaging household chemicals, milk cartons.

If you wish, you can even buy yourself sorting baskets in the same store:

Everything that cannot be thrown away near the store, and if you don’t want to pay for bags, can be taken to a landfill (more precisely, a collection point, but for simplicity we will say “landfill”). This is if you are lucky and there is such a landfill in your commune. And if you’re unlucky, you’ll only be able to throw away certain things on certain days, when a special machine will drive around the commune and collect them. You will also receive the schedule by mail.

For example, after the New Year, everyone was informed that Christmas trees would be collected strictly on January 7th. Of course, you don’t have to throw it away, but in this case you’ll have to take the tree to the landfill yourself, filling the whole car with needles.

You can't just end up in a landfill. To do this, you need to obtain an electronic pass from the local administration, which is issued only to residents of the commune who have paid the tax (it seems about 80 francs per year, or around 3,000 rubles). Of course, the landfill also works at strictly defined hours.

If you come on the weekend, you will even have to stand in line and wait - there are so many people who want to throw away their garbage separately.

We stop by the landfill - no stench, no garbage underfoot. Everything is clean and organized like clockwork.

We immediately come across containers for old clothes. Moreover, there are containers where textiles are thrown for recycling...

And there are separate containers for clothes and shoes, which will be used to help the homeless or people in need. They say "Thank you very much."

We go into the first hangar we come across - and already here we feel dizzy from the number of categories.

From what is in this room: standard batteries, fluorescent lamp starters and plug fuses...

Light bulbs with detailed instructions, which one...

Plastic milk bottles...

At the same time, plastic bottle caps are separate.

Corner for CDs, video cassettes and even floppy disks.

Bread (!) This is for those who are not too lazy to throw it into organic waste.

Toys (!!)... Unfortunately, I don’t know what they do with them.

Along the wall there is a whole rack of things that someone simply didn’t need, and you can take them with you. There are mainly books and mugs here.

It's even funnier in the adjacent hangar. Here you need to throw away old electronics and household appliances. Moreover, it also needs to be sorted into different containers - electric kettles separately from monitors.

Even for wires, there are two different boxes - one for power cables, and the other for all sorts of adapters.

You can no longer take these things with you.

Another nook for all kinds of chemicals. Paints, car batteries, medications.

Let's take a walk down the street. There's a whole tank of Nespresso coffee capsules here. Tell me, how many of you threw them in regular trash? But they decompose very poorly.

Tanks for glass. There are three of them: for white, brown and green. And the green boxes in front are for metal lids, wine stoppers and something else.

Paper separately, cardboard separately.

And bags from the supermarket, which look so much like paper, are also separate.

You can’t just pick up furniture and take it outside. It must be brought to a landfill, disassembled, broken if possible and thrown into a special container.

Container for metal:

And Christmas trees.

Construction waste, of course, must also be brought to the landfill yourself.

Different types of oil - vegetable and machine.

Already assembled packages to be sent for further processing.

This is what the waste collection bins look like from the other side. From the standing car you can imagine their scale.

And all this, I repeat, is very clean, neat and does not at all resemble the garbage dump familiar to residents of many countries.

In general, the level of development of a state can be easily determined by its attitude towards garbage. This can be seen in the graph at the very beginning of the post, and in photographs from many developing countries, where streets and rivers have been turned into landfills. In Switzerland, the culture of collecting garbage is instilled from school - children write tests with problems like “where to throw away polystyrene foam” and “how to walk the dog.”

Of course it is large number rules may seem absurd. Moreover, many people will perceive such prohibitions as an encroachment on their constitutional rights and freedoms. Exactly the way it happens with paid parking in the center of Moscow. However, we still have to come to this someday if we want to make our cities cleaner and our resources a little more renewable.

You can start small. It is not necessary to give money to save polar bears or throw paint on those who wear fur. It is enough to simply put the dead batteries in a small box, and then take them to the collection point, which gradually appear in major cities. It's not as difficult as it seems.

In Switzerland, even dogs know this.

P.S. Considering the large number of questions in the comments, I will clarify once again - there is no coercion or genocide. Most people do only basic paper-plastic-glass-other sorting and throw the lion's share of waste into paid bags. Everything above is a voluntary event.

Judge for yourself, for each bag of garbage you need to pay special companies. Throwing away five kilograms of waste costs 2-3 francs. The Swiss know how to count their money, so they prefer not to pay, but to hand over waste and broken items to special prim points. Paper products are sent to waste paper collection points, and cardboard is separated from paper, because its recycling is more expensive. Gas automatics, household appliances and other appliances are sent to special recycling companies. Metal products - to scrap metal collection points. Glass bottles- to glass container collection points, having previously sorted them by glass color. Deceased pets are sent to funeral homes, since burying the bodies of pets in the garden or forest is strictly prohibited. And these are just a few examples, since in Switzerland they sort and hand over everything they can. At the same time, no money is paid to the residents of the country. The Swiss are happy that they were able to save money on this.

An ideal sorting and recycling scheme can be illustrated using the example of a tea bag. The spent bag should be disassembled into its components - the tea leaves should be sent to the compost, the paper of the bag to the paper, the label to the cardboard, the aluminum clip to scrap metal, and the string to a paid garbage bag with a special label. This, of course, is an exaggerated example, but you know, the Swiss don’t really like tea bags, because throwing the tea leaves from a mug or teapot into the compost is much easier and cheaper than disassembling the bags or throwing them away entirely.

It would seem that there is nothing simpler - throw garbage on the side of the road on the way to vacation or work and not pay for it. But even such clever people are under control. In Switzerland there is garbage police, which can find a bully through trash. They're on the move modern methods working with material evidence and databases. One day, the local newspaper reported a case where some hooligan or someone who wanted to save money threw garbage bags out of the car window. He was found and forced to pay 9,500 francs in fines and court costs. The amount, frankly speaking, is very large and, I think, will forever discourage further violation of the rules.

By the way, such a waste management system was introduced gradually (not throughout the country at once). This led to the fact that residents of those territories where they had to pay for garbage simply took their waste to other territories that were free from such rules. Because of this, the country's authorities had to urgently introduce the system throughout Switzerland. It took about thirty years to completely cleanse the country.

Such an attitude towards one’s land deserves to be known as much as possible. more people. So, share information with your friends and acquaintances. Perhaps, gradually, we will be able to call our country one of the cleanest corners of the Earth.

Why did a country with an area one and a half times smaller than Tatarstan need 30 waste incineration plants and how does it work? separate collection in one of the most advanced countries in Europe? Kazan journalists were able to get answers to these questions first-hand, from the residents of Switzerland themselves. The AGK-2 company, planning to build a waste incineration plant in Tatarstan, organized a press tour to Switzerland, to the MSZ in Lucerne, to show how the waste incineration plant actually works. heat treatment waste. Actually, the plant itself, around which controversy continues in Kazan, is the final stage of the solid waste disposal system. It all starts with the same separate waste collection that environmental activists tirelessly talk about. Editor-in-Chief " Kazan reporter"Anton Reichstat saw with his own eyes the path that garbage takes in Switzerland from the trash can to the furnace of the incineration plant. The first part of the story is devoted to how separate collection works in this country.

– Just look, they have special free bags for dog walking! – the journalist absolutely sincerely admires Maria Gorozhaninova, showing his colleagues red bags with a picture of a dog. - There are even instructions.

Colleagues smile and try to read the German names on the tanks standing nearby. A group of journalists from Kazan may have looked rather peculiar, looking first into one container and then into another... You can’t explain to passers-by that main goal trips - to understand how waste collection is organized in Switzerland and how it all works in practice.

And there is something to see. Garbage containers here, perhaps, more than in any other country. The fact is that they stand in groups, sometimes almost ten pieces each, for different types waste: glass (green, brown, transparent - all separately), plastic bottles, aluminum cans, paper and cardboard, and a lot of different containers. The bins themselves are located underground, and the system is designed in such a way that the garbage truck that comes to empty them can practically not spill anything. That’s why everything around is clean: no stains, no flies, no smell...

Just 30 years ago, garbage here was treated in much the same way as here: everything was thrown into landfills with minimal processing. After some time, mountains of garbage could easily compete with the Alpine mountains. More and more new landfills appeared, which not only poisoned the earth, water and air, but also simply took up a lot of space. For Switzerland, which is one and a half times smaller in area than Tatarstan, this circumstance is quite significant. Waste sometimes burned directly in landfills, virtually uncontrollably. In 1986 they decided that they could no longer litter like this.

– Previously, waste disposal in landfills was quite common in Switzerland. But there were a number of shortcomings, for example, we had to somehow solve the problem with gas, which had been formed at these landfills for decades. 1 ton of methane creates the same greenhouse effect like 22 tons carbon dioxide. “It’s very harmful,” he says. Hans-Peter Fahrny, ex-head of the waste management department at the Federal Protection Authority environment Switzerland. – In addition, we had problems with pollution groundwater and river beds. In addition, landfills for waste disposal require more and more space, and our country is small. This became a problem for us. Burning waste at landfills leads to very big problems. Therefore, in 2000, the Swiss government banned the disposal of solid waste in landfills.

Now the waste disposal system in this country works like a Swiss watch, and like a Swiss knife, it is tailored to the environment. The main principle - “the polluter pays”, is implemented at all levels, from large corporations to the residents of this country. They have been preparing for this since childhood. It all starts from the first grades of school, where students listen to special lessons on how to handle waste and even write tests on how to sort garbage or walk animals. Basic level– primary sorting: paper, cardboard, glass, plastic bottles and food waste. For those who care about recycling or simply want to save money, there are about fifty more types of collection. For example, there are separate containers for coffee capsules made of foil or stoppers from wine bottles. True, such collection points are only available at special stations. But containers for the most common garbage are located near houses and in supermarkets. In addition, there are vehicles driving around populated areas that collect solid waste according to a set schedule. For example, at the beginning of January there is one day when you can donate your Christmas tree.

Anything that cannot be recycled is collected in special bags that are sold in stores. They come in different volumes: 11, 35 and 60 liters. 60-liter ones, for example, cost 3.8 francs (about 240 rubles). The money goes towards waste disposal. In principle, you can put everything in bags, but then you will have to spend money on buying them. So a person has a choice: either separate waste or spend money on bags.

– You put this bag on the street, a car comes and takes it away. You can't dump a bunch of trash on the street, you'll be found and you'll pay a fine. This will be very expensive, about 100 francs. There are few such cases, but they do happen, explains the owner of a waste recycling station Prisca Schmid.

– What if I just throw unsorted garbage into a container without any special bag?– journalists are interested.

“They will definitely find you,” the translator himself can no longer resist. Yuri Rapoport, who has been living in Switzerland for several years and has completely accepted local customs. - How will they find it? It happens that a person throws away a letter or other correspondence with the rest of the trash that has an address or receipt on it. Using them, it is easy to determine the owner of the garbage. Usually in locality everyone already knows each other, a certain culture has developed. So identifying the person who litters will not be difficult. But the most important thing is conscience. Are you familiar with this concept?

For those who are not particularly familiar with this concept, there are penalties. The fine for such a violation is from 50 to 200 francs (the Swiss franc is almost equal to the dollar), which, as practice shows, is quite effective. Zurich and Geneva continually appear on lists of the cleanest cities in the world. Outside the city, the picture is generally idyllic: sun-drenched fields and neat rural houses surrounded by the Alpine mountains. In the midst of all this splendor there are 3 dozen waste incineration plants.

The thermal waste treatment plant is the final stage of the waste management system in Switzerland. Once the garbage is in the container, it is sent to the sorting station. From here there are two ways: go to recycling or to the incinerator - they replaced landfills in Switzerland. The ratio of recycled and incinerated waste is approximately equal. The average Swiss resident throws out more than 700 kilograms of garbage per year. 353 kg of waste is burned, another 355 kg is recycled. And the Swiss are meticulously monitoring how the structure of recyclable materials is changing, fighting for every percentage.

A second life is given to paper and cardboard (170 kg per person per year), glass (41 kg), household appliances (13.2 kg), fabric (6.3 kg), plastic bottles (4.3 kg) and aluminum cans are recycled (2.3 kg). 118 kilograms food waste are also getting into action. In general, the recycling rate in the country is about 50 percent. So far this is the pinnacle that has been achieved over decades of work. Among the leaders in processing:

Glass – 96%
Aluminum cans – 92%
Paper – 90%
Plastic bottles – 82%
Batteries – 71%

“We still have a lot of compost left for processing, but we cannot calculate how much percent is recycled because there is no data on how much to take for 100%. The same applies to scrap metal, textiles and electrical appliances, explains Hans-Peter Fahrni.

Environmental legislation in Switzerland one of the most scrupulous. To understand how the inhabitants of this country relate to the world around them, it is enough to cite one of the local laws as an example: it is forbidden to keep animals with a “high emotional need for communication” alone, for example, guinea pigs. For them, the owner is obliged to keep a pair. And the Swiss city of Zermatt is completely free of traditional cars. Only electric vehicles are allowed here. Switzerland has one of the most advanced waste management systems in the world, with dozens of waste incineration plants operating and new ones being built. Otherwise, the Swiss would have to put 3 million tons of waste annually somewhere. By the way, only here it was possible to achieve zero landfilling, that is, the country simply abandoned landfills.

“Previously, everything was possible and everything was permitted, but since 1986 we have been living in a new world,” says Hans-Peter Fahrni, not without pride. – We believe that we should dispose of our waste ourselves, and not send it to Africa or any other countries. We don't want our problems to affect our descendants. Switzerland's goal is to dispose of its waste on its territory.

What is the sanitary zone around Swiss incinerators, how do local residents react to them, why is it impossible to achieve 100% recycling and what comes out of the furnace? IN next parts we will go to the sorting station and the incinerator. Let's talk to local farmers and people for whom waste is wealth.

Switzerland is a country of ideal cleanliness; waste sorting in this country is a whole philosophy brought to perfection. Let's look at how they managed to do this?

In the 80s of the twentieth century, the environmental situation in Switzerland was catastrophic - all rivers and lakes were polluted with phosphates and nitrates - heavy metals, it was rapidly decreasing, and the growing consumer society produced a huge amount of garbage. Very soon, residents began to choke on their own garbage, industrial and agricultural pollution. In such a small area there were no large areas to dump waste and forget about it. I had to take action...

First reforms - garbage tourism

First, in one of the regions they decided to introduce a tax on garbage, and the so-called “garbage labeling” was introduced. A stamp indicating payment of the tax is affixed to each garbage bag. Throwing away five kilograms of garbage costs 2-3 francs (price varies depending on the region). Therefore, most local residents take everything they can to recycling centers, where it costs nothing to give away an old computer or an old baby stroller.

But many people, in order to avoid paying taxes, began to take out garbage to other regions. The phenomenon of so-called garbage tourism has begun to spread. On weekends, people took their families, filled their trunks with the waste accumulated over the week, and drove to another part of the country for a picnic. And they traveled around the country and threw away garbage for free. Over 3,000 tons of “illegal” bags of waste were transported to Zurich alone per day. Therefore, all cantons and communities had to introduce a tax on garbage.

Then the garbage police showed up. Specialists, using modern technologies, analyze garbage left in the wrong place or without paying taxes - they find the violator (this is not a joke) and fine him/her. The fines are high. The New Zurich newspaper wrote about a case when a man, on the way to work, simply threw household garbage in paper bags out of the car window. The police tracked him down.

After this, the tedious process of waste separation began, which evolved over about two decades.

Waste sorting system in Switzerland

Here is an exaggerated example of how to properly throw away a used tea bag: the label - to the cardboard, the bag itself - to the old paper, the tea leaves - to the compost, the paper clip - to the used metal, and the thread - to the marked garbage bag. One could say that this is a joke... but not in Switzerland.

Switzerland leads the world in the number of bottles returned - more than 90% of containers are returned to glass recycling plants. The program for the acceptance and recycling of used glass began in 1972 and is still being successfully implemented.

It is processed separately from cardboard (cardboard recycling is more expensive), so citizens are required to return one separately from the other. Almost a third of printed products produced in the country are returned to recycling collection points.

No one would think of throwing used batteries in the trash. Therefore, 60% of all batteries sold in Switzerland are returned and not thrown into the bin.

PET bottles are rented separately, old electrical appliances and household appliances are rented separately, construction waste is given separately, fluorescent lamps are taken separately, tin cans are taken separately (those who rent them are required to press the tin themselves using a magnetic press), animal corpses are taken separately (for this you have to pay, but it is prohibited to bury them), separately - the remains of vegetable oil, separately - the remains of machine oil (it is strictly forbidden to change the oil in your own car - this will be done for you at a technical station for 50 francs). The list alone becomes scary.

Everyone is equal before the law

This system knows no exceptions - everyone is required to put garbage in different containers. This is a complete democracy where everyone participates. And this is a complete absence of democracy, where no one’s objections and discussions are accepted: if you don’t agree, pay a fine. Such an approach to waste disposal is only possible in the Helvetica Confederation. That's the mentality. Everyone likes to live clean.

The fact that you are rich does not elevate you above the law. You can often see citizens disembarking from a Porsche and, without an inferiority complex, unloading empty bottles at the container delivery point.
Switzerland is now one of the countries with developed public transport and clean mountain air. You can safely drink water from any lake and, of course, from the tap.

But main reason What counts as such success is not high fines and fear of the garbage police, but the awareness of citizens. After all, if everyone around you regularly sorts garbage, then you won’t be able to live any other way.