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Some notes about how all this is handled in Switzerland: 1- electronics HW (HDD, TV, microSD-card, etc..) recycling costs are already embedded in the cost of a

Some notes about how all this is handled in Switzerland: 1- electronics HW (HDD, TV, microSD-card, etc..) recycling costs are already embedded in the cost of any new stuff that is sold (there is a little bit of extra price to be paid when buying new HW, that in turn will cover the costs to recycle the old HW that is probably being replaced or that will be replaced in the future). People dump their old HW to collection centers for free, which is then partially recycled (current technology cannot yet recover all metals etc.. contained in HW). 2- Some specific trash (e.g. PET, metals, etc...) can be brought to recycling collection centers and dumped there for free, which is then recycled. 3- To "motivate" people to produce as less non-recyclable trash as possible and to get rid of recyclable stuff in the right way (points #1 & #2), anything that gets into the non-recyclable trash must be paid for - e.g. we have to pay ~2 USD for a 35-liters trash bag, big objects need a special "sticker" that must be bought (don't remember how much it costs) => normal trash bags and big stuff without sticker don't get collected, so you cannot just leave them on the street. In general, during the last years this put quite some pressure as well on the retailers (meaning the final shops from which you buy stuff): in the past they used e.g. the many small chunks of polystyrene ( https://www.vertapak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/polystyrene-packaging.jpg https://www.vertapak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/polyst... ) to cushion what was in their packages, but now they all almost always use small inflatable bags - in both cases still plastic, but the amount of material is like 1000 times lower. They did it because many people continuously complained a bit to them that on one hand polystyrene wasn't environmental, but as well or especially because they had to use a lot of space in the "special costly trash bag" to throw that stuff away. I admit that I'm not the best recycler (PET+HW+batteries+lightbulbs+clothes always, but rarely stuff like metal and glass and paper), but in the end I think that I'm at least "ok". Switzerland doesn't have a nation-wide law about it, and if I want I can still throw away stuff into the non-recyclable loop, but if I do it then I have to pay for it (by buying the special trash bag or sticker) as I usually do when I throw away cans and bottles mixed with other stuff => freedom, but at a price - that sentence does sound horrible but in this context of recycling it just makes sense, and for me it works absolutely well :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_management_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_management_in_Switzerlan...

aembleton 6y ago
Does Switzerland have any problems with illegal dumping? I'd imagine charging per bag of waste would cause that to increase.
- zepearl 6y ago
  You're right, it does happen, but not frequently respectively on a large scale. For example: 1- it does happen that sometimes some illegal trash bags are found in the woods (most of the time it's still in trash bags and not spread everywhere as they usually don't contain animal/vegetable stuff, as that would anyway be free to be disposed of, therefore animals don't sniff it therefore they don't mess it up), but then they're reported to the police/municipality by whoever discovered them and are then collected. 2- same thing in urban areas: sometimes (very rarely as much as I know and have experienced) some "illegal" trash bags show up in your own trash-container, then usually you have to talk to the trash collector and they'll still pick it up. But: - about case #2, as mentioned in Wikipedia, the analysis of what's contained in the illegal trash does happen for real (kind of "CSI: Trash"), so if I would put into it something which shows my name (e.g. old newspaper) then I would be screwed (probably not the first time, but I would be by the 2nd or 3rd time that the same thing happens). Even if I would do everything perfectly then after at least the 2nd time all neighbours would all try to find the perpetrator => high risk. - about case #1 and in general, the country is small and has a relatively high density in the habitable areas (e.g. not in the mountains) => many eyes around, so if you keep doing that twice or three times you are likely to be noticed by somebody, who will report that to the police or at least the municipality - same thing about rural areas (fewer eyes but as well fewer visitors, therefore likeliness of being observed doing something bad after repeated offense is still high). Nothing in the mountains as far a I know (too much effort driving up there to then take the risk to dump stuff while potentially being photographed from the other side of the valley by e.g. someone that was doing trekking). I believe that we don't have problems with electronics like TVs, washing machines, HDDs, fridges, etc... because you can just dump them for free at any shop that sells them (that's the embedded-tax-thing I mentioned above), so it would be a waste of time & effort plus a lot of risk to dump them into the woods instead of doing the same thing comfortably and officially at any such shop (I admit that some shops get more old stuff than others due to their location and parking space, but nothing is perfect). In bigger countries that have more open/free space, illegal dumping would most probably be a much bigger problem. But on one hand people that do repeated illegal dumping could still be caught, and on the other hand the target is never 100% - already having something like 75% of the population sticking to the waste disposal rules (recycling being a subset) is probably a huge improvement vs. doing nothing :)

aembleton 6y ago

Does Switzerland have any problems with illegal dumping? I'd imagine charging per bag of waste would cause that to increase.

zepearl 6y ago
You're right, it does happen, but not frequently respectively on a large scale. For example: 1- it does happen that sometimes some illegal trash bags are found in the woods (most of the time it's still in trash bags and not spread everywhere as they usually don't contain animal/vegetable stuff, as that would anyway be free to be disposed of, therefore animals don't sniff it therefore they don't mess it up), but then they're reported to the police/municipality by whoever discovered them and are then collected. 2- same thing in urban areas: sometimes (very rarely as much as I know and have experienced) some "illegal" trash bags show up in your own trash-container, then usually you have to talk to the trash collector and they'll still pick it up. But: - about case #2, as mentioned in Wikipedia, the analysis of what's contained in the illegal trash does happen for real (kind of "CSI: Trash"), so if I would put into it something which shows my name (e.g. old newspaper) then I would be screwed (probably not the first time, but I would be by the 2nd or 3rd time that the same thing happens). Even if I would do everything perfectly then after at least the 2nd time all neighbours would all try to find the perpetrator => high risk. - about case #1 and in general, the country is small and has a relatively high density in the habitable areas (e.g. not in the mountains) => many eyes around, so if you keep doing that twice or three times you are likely to be noticed by somebody, who will report that to the police or at least the municipality - same thing about rural areas (fewer eyes but as well fewer visitors, therefore likeliness of being observed doing something bad after repeated offense is still high). Nothing in the mountains as far a I know (too much effort driving up there to then take the risk to dump stuff while potentially being photographed from the other side of the valley by e.g. someone that was doing trekking). I believe that we don't have problems with electronics like TVs, washing machines, HDDs, fridges, etc... because you can just dump them for free at any shop that sells them (that's the embedded-tax-thing I mentioned above), so it would be a waste of time & effort plus a lot of risk to dump them into the woods instead of doing the same thing comfortably and officially at any such shop (I admit that some shops get more old stuff than others due to their location and parking space, but nothing is perfect). In bigger countries that have more open/free space, illegal dumping would most probably be a much bigger problem. But on one hand people that do repeated illegal dumping could still be caught, and on the other hand the target is never 100% - already having something like 75% of the population sticking to the waste disposal rules (recycling being a subset) is probably a huge improvement vs. doing nothing :)