Recycling

Why separation happens on site

Sorting afterwards out of a pile of mixed waste is expensive and works badly. That is why a professional clearance separates while emptying the property: metal into one container, electrical appliances into another, paper and cardboard separately, wood separately, hazardous waste packed apart.

That takes a little more time on site but saves considerably more in disposal fees — an effect worth several hundred francs on larger clearances.

The hierarchy: reuse before recycling

Both ecologically and economically, this order makes sense: whatever is still usable should be reused — through buy-back, second-hand shops (“Brockenhaus”, the Swiss charity-run second-hand stores) or by passing it on. Only what is no longer usable goes to material recycling. What cannot be recovered there goes to energy recovery, meaning waste incineration with energy generation.

Landfilling in Switzerland is reserved for what can be recovered neither as material nor as energy — essentially mineral construction waste and residues from incineration.

What actually gets recycled

Well-established Swiss loops exist for metal, aluminium, glass, paper and cardboard, PET, batteries and electrical appliances. For wood, material recovery is limited; treated waste wood mostly goes to energy recovery. For plastics other than PET, the recovery rate remains low.