In all the towns, walking trails, atheletic centers, mountain passes, and random travels, I haven’t seen a single SIGG water bottle here. Nalgene bottle for that matter. While the swiss are good at carrying their own bags to the strore (whether they do this out of waste reduction or that the grocery stores only provide smaller ones is worth of a master’s thesis), they don’t see the need to use reusuable water containers. Sure, I’ve seen them in the climbing stores, outdoor stores, and tourist stands, but I’ve never seen one outside of a store. Compare that to Missoula in the '90s, when everyone had a coffee mug or a nalgene with stickers (Raft Moab!, New Belgium, Petzl, Patagucci) dangling from a $17 locking carabiner clipped to their Dana pack. Or my cabinets at home, where I had at least a dozen (some used and abused, some just in a gay color) Nalgenes.
They use PET bottles here--they just buy one and use it for the day. Or stick their necks out into the fountains to drink. Perhaps bpA is just a fad in the states. They recycle everything. I’d like to think that they do it because it’s the right thing to do, yet somehow I’m convinced a lot of people do it simply due to the price of garbage bags (you don’t pay trash fees here like in the states. The nominal fee for your dumpster seems cheap, but it costs $3 per garbage bag when you buy them at the post office) Yup, most things are recycled so the trash bags stay somewhat empty.
What you end up with is stinking garbage for a few weeks since the bags take a while to fill up with actual trash. I end up bringing our meat packages and scraps to the local train trash bin. The locals laugh. I like to share the stink.
Still, it it better to recycle all plastic in the country or actually use products over and over again? Recycling plastic is still using plastic. It's still cradle to grave for the most part.
Sigg bottles are the one item I can think of, however, that actually costs the same as it does in the US.
Snapple? $5.80 a bottle. Starbucks hot chocolate – $8.70. Regular old coffee? 5 dollas. Ben & Jerry's for $10 on sale? What? They say that once you get your swiss banking job, these prices won't mean a thing. It's all monopoly money, right?
