Waste and Resource Strategies in Switzerland

Ensuring an environmentally sound disposal of waste is one of the requisites for the long-term sustainability of the standard of living in industrialised nations. A country with a high population density and a limited space, Switzerland has tried since the middle of the 1980s to bring innovative solutions to the management of its waste. The implementation of this policy by the cantonnes, the municipalities and by the economic sector, resulted in an increase in the percentage of recycled municipal waste, from 25% in 1988 to over 45% in 2000. To achieve the objective of non-polluting final storage, the Confederation decreed that all combustible non-recyclable waste must be incinerated as of the 1st of January 2000. At the end of 2002, this objective was fulfilled to 97%. Wastes are not only materials without value: they also constitute a resource. Switzerland for example intends to systematically recover the aluminium, copper and zinc from incinerator residues. Through efficient dismantling schemes, the recyclable portions of waste electrical and electronic equipment are diverted to appropriate recycling channels. Because of the permanent ban on the agricultural recovery of sewage sludge that will come into force at the end of 2006 and of the temporary ban on meat and bone meal (due to BSE), phosphor recovery has become a pressing concern. Other important resources still remain to be mined from biowaste and construction waste. In the longer term, an efficient resource management policy must possess instruments, including economic incentives, to act at the source, at the design stage of production, so as to orient the flow of materials.

• Introduction

• Swiss Waste Management Policy

• Towards a Resource Strategy for Switzerland

• Perspectives

• References