from the moment I first arrived in Switzerland, I wanted to write about how to deal with garbage here, because this is really one of the local cultural characteristics that have the greatest impact on my thoughts and ideas. But this is a very difficult and complicated topic, so I haven't written it until now. Recently, two things have stimulated me to think of this topic again. First, after spending this month in Berlin, Germany, eating and drinking are certainly a hundred times better than those in Switzerland, but the sanitation and garbage disposal here are really far from Zurich. After a long time, people miss the cleanliness and neatness of Zurich. Second, a former student in Nanjing told me about the opposition to the construction of waste incineration plants in Liuhe District these two days. It seems that many places in China are now making a storm because of opposition to the construction of waste incineration plants. Just last winter, I visited several garbage disposal centers in Lausanne with friends from Guizhou study group, and got a little more macro understanding of this system. Therefore, today I will pick up the keyboard and try to write. Mainly based on my own practical experience, I will talk about how to throw it first, and then briefly talk about what I know about terminal processing.
I don't know much about Nanjing, and the domestic system is much more complicated than here, so this article can only be said to be inspired by reality, but it doesn't express support or opposition. Even if Germany is so close, its language and culture are related to each other, which is very different from Switzerland. But the more we know about different things, perhaps the more we can clearly reflect on our own situation.
garbage seems to be a trivial matter in life, but garbage disposal is a very controversial event. It seems that you are abandoning useless things by yourself, but in fact, this abandonment is entangled in many things beyond the individual, such as culture, nationality, technology and social governance. The Swiss are a nation with cleanliness and classification addiction. Many people have seen and laughed at the works of Ursus Wehrli, a famous artist, sorting out classic paintings.
Because of this, many people who know the characteristics of garbage disposal in Switzerland always like to write in a big way, starting with the data of the whole country, but I think things that may start from individuals should be returned to individuals to see more clearly. Another thing to explain is that Switzerland is a culture that emphasizes locality in its bones, so different states have different policies, but they are also a highly efficient federation, so the big framework and concept are still relatively consistent. My life experience is only based on the situation in Zurich, and the part I deal with is based on a visit to Lausanne. People in other parts of Switzerland, or not in Zurich, may have very different experiences.
As many people know, after just coming to Switzerland to register in the local "neighborhood committee", everyone will receive a thick manual on garbage disposal, but in Zurich, it is in German, so many people can't understand it, and they won't read it carefully. In the end, they have to learn it in practice. Try to imagine that if you live in Switzerland, you will have something to pack at the end of the day. Egg shells, banana peels, cucumber tails and all other organic wastes from the kitchen can be thrown into the green tube outside the building in a bowl. Of course, if you are too troublesome, you can also buy a special degradable bag in the supermarket and finally throw it into the tube together with the bag.
by the end of the week, you will have all kinds of glass bottles, iron cans and plastic bottles. In each living area, there is a centralized recycling point. The glass bottles need to be washed and thrown into these big cylinders in different colors of green, white and gray. The iron ones are thrown in the low cupboard. If you don't want the paper bag carrying the bottle, you can throw it in a special cabinet next to it. Recyclable plastic bottles should be thrown into special recycling cabinets in supermarkets. You can also throw batteries, old light bulbs and so on there.
you may have a lot of waste paper at the end of a month. In this respect, Zurich is divided into two kinds, one is cardboard, and the other is all kinds of ordinary paper. To tell the truth, we haven't completely figured out how to distinguish which kind of cardboard belongs to. Together with the garbage guide book, everyone will also receive a garbage calendar. Every two weeks or so, you have a chance to throw paper garbage, and the two kinds alternate. Before throwing it, everyone will stack it as flat as possible, especially ordinary paper. People will bundle it into very neat tofu pieces with special ropes and put it neatly on the roadside at the door of the building. There will also be a handle on the rope, so that workers can quickly clear it when they drive a cart to collect it. If you are tired of not remembering the days, you can order a short message reminder on the government website. On the first day of throwing cardboard or paper, the system will send a short message to tell you.
after one year, you may have all kinds of old clothes and shoes. If it's only old, but it can still be worn, then you will have two chances to donate it every year. Special plastic bags will be received in advance in the mailbox, and then people will wash their clothes, put them in bags and tie their mouths. Put the date on the calendar at the door, and wait for the special person to take it away for further processing and donation.
Some people will clean up the unwanted electrical appliances, furniture and various other valuable things that can still be used, put them in order, and put "free" or "free" notes on the side of the road for those who need them to take away. However, broken electrical appliances or all kinds of small and medium-sized wastes that can't be separated easily have to wait for special days, and trucks will be used to receive them at fixed recycling points. These recycling points are all in places with public transportation links, and people can throw them by tram.
all other plastic bags, dirty wrapping paper, and small things that can't be put into any of the above categories should be thrown into a special garbage bag called Zurich bag, and then thrown into the vat specially for receiving such bags in the community. This kind of "Zurich bag" is to be bought by yourself, and it is more expensive. The medium size of 35 liters costs 1.7 francs each. According to people in Lausanne, the pricing of such bags is actually a tool for the government to adjust the balance of waste disposal expenses.
some people say that this is too troublesome and complicated. what if someone doesn't follow it? It's interesting to say, first of all, this atmosphere that everyone strictly abides by will prompt you to do so; Secondly, it is said that there are special garbage police who will check and then punish those who don't obey the rules. We have never met this and have never found exaggerated violations in our neighbors.
As an individual with a less complicated life, that's all I have to throw away. What about the handling? I don't understand big policies and institutions because I haven't studied them. But in general, it should be of recycling value and will be disposed of reasonably. What we visited in Lausanne was mainly an ordinary garbage incineration plant and a toxic garbage treatment center.
the site of the incineration plant is really next to the city, and there is no distance from the surrounding residential areas. But the premise is: 1. Garbage will be collected through special truck and underground train transportation system, and there will be no odor problem. Using advanced incineration technology (the core processing machine is imported from Japan), the treatment is sufficient and strict filtration, resulting in a small amount of waste; 2. They have strict monitoring facilities and monitoring institutions, and all the data are displayed online. According to their own claims, their emission standards are stricter than Swiss national standards, and no toxic substances will enter the air; 3. They repay the local community and provide lower-priced power supply and heating for the local area; 4. They are transparent and open. During the design, construction and operation, local people are allowed to participate in the opinions. Everyone can apply for a visit. They have special lecturers to guide the tour and explain the specific technology and operation. Their website also publishes all technical indicators, emission indicators, asset balance and so on.
a flow chart on the website of the incineration plant. How to use garbage to produce energy? www.tridel.ch/
Toxic Waste Treatment Center C has three major businesses, namely, mercury lamp tube treatment plant, waste oil separation treatment plant and toxic dust treatment plant collected from the garbage incineration plant. Two of them were impressed. One was that their testing and sorting center could only do small-scale toxic waste (such as less than 21KG) by hand. This step required people with many years' working experience to preliminarily judge its composition and disposal scheme by observation. Although Switzerland has a strict monitoring and tracking system, sometimes there are very dangerous accidents. They once received a barrel filled with toxic substances but mislabeled. If their workers hadn't kept a safe distance according to the standard method, they might have died if they opened the lid rashly. Most of the people who work in this dangerous and dirty environment are immigrants from Portugal. The other place is their landfill. They mixed all the dust with toxic substances such as heavy metals recovered from the incineration plant with cement to make cement cubes, then dug a deep pit underground, made it waterproof and isolated from the surrounding soil water sources, and then buried these cubes there forever. This is human-made garbage that can't be digested and recycled naturally. When we went there, there was a heavy fog in the mountains. In the big pit dug between the green spaces in Shan Ye, you could vaguely see the surrounding gray waterproof materials, the polluted water collection canal deep under the ground, and there might be those cubic houses piled up next to it. All this was really like a giant mouth leading to hell in the hazy fog. In a few years, this pit will be filled up, and an adjacent piece of land will be dug up, doing the same thing. Part of the soil originally mined here has been used as raw material by the cement plant, and the upper part will be piled back to this hidden secret as it was, and the grass will regenerate and the trees will grow again. We bystanders passing by, even the residents around us who sent garbage to the incineration plant, will soon forget this place like a sigh of forgetting the land.
Thank you for reading this article. I wish you a good mood and a clean place. Yuheng