When my sister, a neatnik, first visited us in Switzerland decades ago, she was delighted by the orderliness.
“Wow the streets are so clean you eat off of them!”
Almost.
Switzerland is the only place I know where sanitation workers regularly sweep the streets, pick up litter and blow leaves away from fountains and monuments.
The sight of the bright orange clad service technique (technical branch) brushing leaves off the forest-lined highway leading to our village was so remarkable, I wanted to stop the car and snap a photo.
Unfortunately, tidiness may be a lost cause for a Pig-Pen, pack rat like me. The Swiss inherit the “clean gene” as a birthright. My sister was the only McKinzie born with that chromosome .
In Switzerland garbage is verboten. Litter taboo.
Citizens pay a trash tax and also must discard household waste in special designed bags that cost 3 dollars a piece. Most towns and cities have garbage collection service, but in our village, there is no garbage pick up for people living in chalets and single family dwellings. Most residents carry their rubbish to dumpsters, housed in mini chalet-like sheds, dispersed throughout town.
Our state of the art recycle center is so efficient, it could become a tourists attraction. Surrounded by pine trees, our disposable hub could win awards in cleanliness and sanitation. With the Swiss flare for organization, waste materials are separated into labeled compartments. Citizens drive to our wooden-framed building carved out of mountainside to recycle bigger items of glass (by color) wood, paper, electronics, batteries, metals, plastics (two categories), aerosols, paints and oils.
Litter is extinct. The propre en ordre “clean and orderly” is ingrained as part of one’s civic duty. Training starts at a young age. Even tiny tots learn how to pick up trash and recycle. In front of our primary school, blue, green, red and black colored Crayolas-shaped bins help teach children to discard plastics, papers, and disposables items in separate containers.
Switzerland is the only country I am aware of where the city’s technical department employees regularly sweep sidewalks, blow leaves, pick up litter and wash the lamp posts’ light fixtures.
Snow plowing in our mountain village is also impressive. With every fresh snowfall, we can hear plows out at 4 am to clear the streets.
The government is fully committed to conserving energy and preserving the environment. They require new homes and buildings to use renewable energy sources like solar panels, heat pumps and pellets. Natural gas and oil furnaces are banned.
Get this! 24 Heures (Swiss newspaper) recently reported 40% percent of its residents even clean their homes before the cleaning lady arrives! No kidding!
This country looks like a postcard. Tidy Swiss chalets with flowered window boxes and painted shutters dot the countryside. Villages, like ours in the Jura Mountains, offer gorgeous, pristine views of the woods, Lake Geneva and the Alps.
Natural resources are precious resources and Swiss folks do their best to keep it that way.
The sheer beauty of the land inspires people who live or visit here to respect nature and protect the spectacular vista.
As for me, my house remains a cluttered mess, but I have learned to automatically remove my shoes before entering any one else’s home.
