Forgetful Friday

To be completely honest, I don't remember what we did on Friday. Probably the usual... Migros, food, visiting with Leve... However, neither of us can remember any specifics. So, I'm going to take advantage of this post to explain about Switzerland recycling.

I have never see recycling like I have seen it here. Not only was I shocked that they had to pay for the bags to through their trash out, but that there are special recycling sites near every neighborhood. People who live near by bring a wagon or carry their recyclables over, the people who live farther away bring trunk fulls of stuff. At these special areas, they have large bins for all different types of recycling. There was a bin for green glass, clear glass, brown class, hard cardboard, light cardboard, plastic, etc.

The first day we spent at our new flat Leve gave us the run down on how we had to split up our garbage. There is a small bin in the kitchen for all food scraps. This gets dumped into the compost. So, egg shells, fruit peels, potato skins, bread crumbs... all go into this little bin. It fills up in about a week and a half. Then we have to dump the small bin in the large compost. The large compost is located near the garage entrance of our flat.

Next to the small bin, is a little plastic bag full of aluminum and glass. The glass can easily be separated from the aluminum, so it's okay to keep everything in one bag. We haven't had to throw this out yet, but if we had to, we would take a walk down the block to one of those large recycling areas.

Then, there are three shelves in the kitchen. We separate paper, like magazines and newspapers into this pile. There's a separate pile for light weight cardboard and then another shelve for heavier weight cardboard.

We got used to this method pretty quick, but the rule of thumb was, try to use everything you could. If you had to throw something out, try to make sure it doesn't belong in one of the other piles before you put it in one of the blue trash bags. I still can't believe they make them back 4chf for garbage bags.

Anyways, that was my Forgetful Friday run down of how recycle friendly Switzerland is!