Looking around the world: How does Switzerland, a clean country, deal with garbage?

Since I first arrived in Switzerland, I want to write about how to deal with garbage here, because this is really one of the local cultural characteristics that have the greatest influence on my thoughts and concepts. But this is a very difficult and complicated topic, so I haven't written it yet. Recently, two things stimulated me to think of this topic again. First, after spending this month in Berlin, Germany, eating and drinking are certainly 100 times better than those in Switzerland, but the sanitation and garbage disposal here are really far from Zurich. After a long time, people miss Zurich's cleanliness and neatness. Secondly, a former student in Nanjing told me that he opposed the construction of a waste incineration plant in Liuhe District these two days. It seems that many places in China are making a lot of noise because they are opposed to building garbage incineration plants. Just last winter, my friends and I visited several garbage disposal centers in Lausanne, and got a little more macro understanding of this system. So, today I picked up the keyboard and tried to write. Mainly based on my own practical experience, I will talk about how to throw it first, and then briefly talk about my understanding of 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, without expressing support or opposition. Even though Germany is so close, its language and culture are interlinked, which is quite different from Switzerland. But the more we know about different things, the more we may be able to reflect on our situation clearly.

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. Many people have seen the works of Ursus Wehrli, a famous artist, sorting out classic paintings and laughed it off.

Because of this, many people who know that Switzerland has its own characteristics in garbage disposal always like to write in a big way, starting with the national data, but I think that perhaps things that start with individuals should be seen more clearly. Another thing to note is that Switzerland emphasizes local culture in its bones, so different states have different policies, but it is also an efficient federation, so the big framework and concept are still relatively consistent. My life experience is only based on the situation in Zurich, and part of what I deal with is based on a visit to Lausanne. People in other parts of Switzerland, or people who are not in Zurich, may have very different experiences.

As many people know, when they first come to Switzerland and register in the local "neighborhood committee", everyone will receive a thick garbage disposal manual, but in Zurich, it is a German version. Many people don't understand it and don't read it carefully. Finally, they have to learn by doing. Imagine that if you live in Switzerland, you will have something to pack at the end of the day. All organic wastes such as egg shells, banana peels and cucumber tails in the kitchen can be put in bowls and thrown into the green pipes outside the building. Of course, if you are too troublesome, you can also buy a special degradable bag in the supermarket and throw it into the test tube with the bag.

On weekends, you will have all kinds of glass bottles, tin cans and plastic bottles. In each living area, there is a centralized recycling point. Glass bottles need to be cleaned and thrown into these vats with different colors of green, white and gray. The iron ones are thrown in the low cupboard. If you don't want a paper bag for bottles, you can throw it in the 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 the like there.

After a month, you may have a lot of waste paper. 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 fully figured out how to distinguish which kind of cardboard belongs to. Along with the junk guide book, everyone will receive a junk calendar. Every two weeks or so, you have a chance to throw paper garbage, and the two alternate. Everyone will try to fold it flat before throwing it, especially ordinary paper. People will tie it into very neat tofu blocks with special ropes and put it neatly on the roadside at the entrance of the building. There will also be a handle on the rope, so that workers can clean it quickly when they drive a cart to collect it. If you are tired of not remembering the date, you can order SMS reminders on the government website. On the first day of throwing cardboard or paper, the system will send a text message to tell you.

A year later, you may have all kinds of old clothes and shoes. If it's only old, but it can still be worn, then you have two chances to donate it every year. Special plastic bags will be received in the mailbox in advance, and then people will wash their clothes, put them in bags and tie their mouths. Post the date on the calendar at the door and wait for someone to take it away for further processing and donation.

Some people will clean up and tidy up unnecessary appliances, furniture and other valuable things that can still be used, put up "free" or "free" notes and put them on the side of the road for those in need to take away. Broken electrical appliances or various small and medium-sized wastes that cannot be easily separated will be received by trucks at fixed recycling points on special days. 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 other small things that can't be put in, should be thrown into a special garbage bag called "Zurich bag" and then thrown into a big bucket specially for receiving such bags in the community. This kind of "Zurich bag" is to be bought by yourself, which is more expensive. 35-liter medium, 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 garbage disposal costs.

Some people say this is too troublesome and complicated. What if someone doesn't comply? 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 follow the rules. We have never encountered such a situation, and we have not found any exaggerated violations by our neighbors.

As an individual whose life is not too complicated, this is all I want to throw away. What about 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 waste incineration plant and a toxic waste treatment center.

The location of the incineration plant is really close to the city, and there is no distance from the surrounding residential areas. But the premise is: 1, garbage will be collected by special trucks and underground train transportation systems, and there will be no odor problem. Adopt advanced incineration technology (the core processor is imported from Japan), with sufficient treatment and strict filtration, resulting in less waste; They have strict monitoring facilities and institutions, and all the data are displayed on the Internet. According to their own statement, 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 and put forward opinions. Everyone can apply for a visit. They have special lecturers to guide the tour and explain the specific techniques and operations. Their website also publishes all technical indicators, emission indicators, asset balance and so on.

The flow chart on the incineration plant website shows how to produce energy www.tridel.ch/ from garbage.

Toxic waste treatment center C has three major businesses: mercury lamp tube treatment plant, waste oil separation treatment plant and toxic dust treatment plant collected by garbage incineration plant. Two of them were impressed. One is that their testing and sorting centers can only handle small-scale toxic waste by hand (such as less than 20 kg). This step requires people with many years of work experience to preliminarily judge its composition and disposal plan through observation. Although Switzerland has a strict monitoring and tracking system, sometimes very dangerous accidents happen. They once received a bucket full of toxic substances but mislabeled. If their workers had not kept a safe distance according to the standard method and opened the lid rashly, they might have died. Most people who work in this dangerous and dirty environment are immigrants from Portugal. Another place is their landfill. They mixed all the dust containing toxic substances such as heavy metals recovered from the incineration plant with cement to make cement cubes, then dug a deep pit underground to make it waterproof and isolated from the surrounding soil water sources, and then buried these cubes there forever. This is man-made garbage, which cannot be digested and recycled naturally. There was heavy fog in the mountains when we went there. In the big pit dug between the green spaces in Shan Ye, you can vaguely see the surrounding gray waterproof materials, sewage collection ditches deep underground, and there may be cubic houses piled up next to them. All this is really like a giant mouth leading to hell in the hazy fog. In a few years, this pit will be filled and an adjacent piece of land will be dug up to do the same thing. Part of the soil originally mined here has been used as raw materials by cement plants, and the upper part will be piled back to this hidden secret as before, grass will regenerate and trees will grow again. We bystanders passing by, even the residents who send garbage to the incineration plant around us, 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. Yu Heng