It has been awhile since I posted a blog entry, because I have been VERY busy. We moved into our new flat last weekend and have been trying to get settled. I started working on a post this week about our new apartment, but have had limited amounts of time to work on it, because of a new hobby I have become infatuated with. Really, it's all I think about and every spare moment of my time is spent on it. Now, some women enjoy scrapbooking and cardmaking. Others like to spend time cooking, reading, running. But not me. I have no time to spend on things like that. I am now a full time recycler.
Yes, recycling has consumed my days and nights. If I'm not awake working on saving the environment one cardboard box at a time, I'm laying in bed pondering how to best adhere to the rules of recycling here in Switzerland. I really wanted to update everyone on our new flat, which I love. I was hoping to post pictures of our home for the next two years. But I didn't have the energy to move the giant piles of cardboard that are stacked all over the main living area. And the bags of glass bottles that have been neatly sorted make too much noise to move when the kids are sleeping.
Here in Switzerland, recycling is a full time job. Particularly if you are new to the sport. At first I thought sorting out the different colors of glass bottles was a relaxing activity that I could do while catching up on my favorite reality TV shows. Then I realized that sorting the aluminum into a separate bag to haul to the recycling area in town would be more efficient. Next, a friend told me I needed to sort out all the PET items. Since we pawned off our only pet, a black cat, before moving to Switzerland, I figured this was an area of recycling I would be able to avoid. But here in the land of fondue, PET refers to all plastic items. These too need to be sorted into a separate bag and taken to the appropriate recycling bins in town. So, being an eco-friendly resident of planet earth, I started a bag designated for all the plastic items.
Are you all keeping up? I now have a bag for green glass bottles, a bag for brown glass bottles and a bag for clear glass bottles. The brown bottles consist of beer bottles Bryan has emptied while trying to understand this crazy new hobby I call recycling. The green bottles are mainly wine bottles that I have emptied to make my hobby more relaxing. (I know many of you like to enjoy a glass of wine while cooking or scrapbooking. This is pretty much the same thing, right?) The clear bottles are empty Nutella jars. Z eats lots of Nutella since it is the only food he has not added to his DO NOT EAT list since arriving here in Switzerland. In addition to the 3 bags of glass bottles, I also have a bag of plastic items and a bag of aluminum items sitting in my front hallway to be conveniently hauled around town. That's five bags of efficiently organized garbage to dispose of properly for the love of mother earth.
But wait, you ask. What about the stacks of cardboard you mentioned piled around your flat? Ahhh.....the cardboard. That beautiful brown packaging that Ikea feels must encase all of it's products from candles to couches. Yes, the cardboard is also recycled, my friends. The cardboard you must break down, cut into smaller pieces, and neatly tie into manageable bundles with some nice sturdy string. It's kind of like wrapping Christmas presents, until you realize you are wrapping up what most would consider to be trash. This enjoyable activity takes up a large chunk of the time I have dedicated to my craft. As I type this blog entry, the tips of my fingers ache from the many cuts and scrapes they have suffered while breaking down boxes and slashing them with a box cutter. My once well groomed fingernails are now jagged and brittle. A small price to pay for saving planet earth, wouldn't you say?
An entire wall of our living area was piled high with cardboard boxes yesterday. Today it has been transformed into a giant pile of broken down boxes in the middle of our dining area, awaiting the string tying process. We still have E's big girl bed in 7 boxes, waiting to be assembled. I can hardly wait to get my hands on those big beautiful boxes. They will provide at least a couple hours worth of recycling fun.
Of course the Swiss are reasonable people, and do not expect me to haul my bundles of cardboard around town. No, they provide a convenient pick up service once a month. I just set my bundles out by the giant trash bin for our building on the designated day, and the cardboard fairy takes it off my hands. Unfortunately, the day we moved in was the monthly pickup for cardboard in our town. So I only have 21 more days left to stare at the piles of cardboard that are quickly becoming just a normal part of our surroundings. Oh, how I love to save the environment one box at a time.
Bryan and I have spent an unreasonable amount of time on the computer trying to figure out what is considered cardboard here in beautiful Switzerland. We initially included food boxes, paper rolls, and milk and juice boxes (almost all beverages come in boxes here.)But after reading several lengthy internet articles about what the swiss consider to be cardboard, we sorted out all of these items and set them aside to be classified at a later date. I am guessing that later date will probably be when the milk cartons start to stink making our flat hard to inhabit.
I live in fear of being busted for not recycling correctly. Seriously, the garbage collectors will fine you if they choose to look carefully at the garbage in your bag and find you in violations of local recycling laws. Many people I know here have resorted to tearing their names off all mail so that the garbage guys can't trace their garbage back to them. I have not become advanced enough in my craft to research the paper recycling, so I am heading out this week to buy myself a shredder. I dare the garbage men to try to peice together the shredded remains of my mail. You don't think they'd do that, do you? Sweet Mother of God, tell me they wouldn't do that.....
The recycling bins are located across the street from our building, which is very convenient. Initially, Bryan said this would be a normal stop on his way to the train in the mornings so I wouldn't have to deal with it. Since then, he has walked past the 5 bags of garbage about 43 times without laying a hand on them. I think it's a little more of a hassle than he bargained for. When I took the bags across the street, I emptied the 3 different bags of colored bottles into their appropriate bins. I kept an eye out for any neighbors who might disapprove of the volume of beer and wine bottles I was disposing of. I was ready with a, "Wow, when you don't recycle these bottles for a few months, they really pile up, eh?" speech. The only person to join me at the recycling bins was a matronly woman with a wicker basket loaded with beer bottles. I had nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, there was no PET recycling container. I was told these needed to be taken to the local market where they have PET recycling bins. So I carted my bag of plastic items to the market. While trying to quickly stuff them in the small hole in the wall labeled "PET", a market employee informed me in German that PET referred only to clear plastic. My yogurt and margarine containers could not be recycled here. So this garbage went back into my shopping bag to be taken back home. At this point, my hobby became a bit overwhelming and I considered crying in the middle of our local market. But the Swiss are not into public displays of emotion and I waited until I got home for my recycling meltdown.
Needless to say, all this recycling is making me a little crazy and has caused me to spend some time thinking about ways to simplify the process. The solution I have come up with involves me dressing in all black, heading out with my recyclables under the cover of darkness, and scoping out neighborhood dumpsters. And don't tell me it wouldn't have crossed your mind too.....
