We Swiss are proud of our recycling. The neatly separated waste, the colourful containers for glass, paper, and PET, the rubbish bags with their expensive fee stickers. We believe we're doing everything right.
The reality looks different. Switzerland is among the biggest waste offenders in Europe. And our much-praised recycling system has a blind spot that nobody likes to talk about.
The Numbers That Hurt
703 kilograms. That's how much municipal waste every Swiss person produces per year. That's nearly two kilos per day -- every single day.
This puts us in third place in Europe, behind Denmark (766 kg) and Norway (739 kg). The European average is 492 kilograms. Countries like Romania manage with 271 kilos -- less than half of what we throw away.
The Federal Office for the Environment explains it soberly: It's due to the high per-capita income and the extensive consumption that comes with it. In other words: We buy more, so we throw away more. Logical, but nothing to be proud of.
2.5 Earths for Switzerland
There's a calculation that sums up the problem perfectly: If everyone on Earth lived like the Swiss, we would need 2.5 Earths.
Swiss Overshoot Day -- the day when Switzerland has used up its annual natural resources -- fell on 7 May in 2025. From that date onwards, we're living on credit, consuming resources that the planet can no longer regenerate.
Our ecological footprint is more than four times as large as our own biocapacity. We import 60 percent of our food. We depend on other countries' resources while simultaneously throwing away more than almost everyone else.
The Plastic Problem: Bottom of the Class in Europe
This is where it gets really uncomfortable. Switzerland has the highest plastic consumption in Europe at 127 kilograms per person. And what happens to this plastic?
85 to 90 percent is incinerated. Not recycled. Burned.
We recycle less than 10 percent of the 790,000 tonnes of plastic waste generated annually. Germany, Spain, and Norway achieve over 40 percent. Italy, Austria, and the UK are above 30 percent. Switzerland? 28 percent for packaging -- and that's the flattering figure.
Environmental organisation Oceancare calls Switzerland "Europe's bottom of the class" when it comes to measures against plastic waste. Every year, 14,000 tonnes of macro- and microplastics end up in the Swiss environment. An estimated 580 tonnes of plastic float in Lake Geneva.
That's not the image we have of ourselves. But it's the reality.
Recycling Alone Isn't Enough
Here's the crucial point: Recycling is not the solution. At best, it's part of one -- and not even the most important part.
Every recycling process consumes energy. Materials need to be collected, transported, sorted, cleaned, and converted. With plastic, the material loses quality with each cycle. Even with PET recycling -- the best process we have -- bottles contain an average of only 17 percent recycled material.
The waste hierarchy is actually clear:
- Avoid -- don't produce waste at all
- Reuse -- pass things on and keep using them
- Recycle -- only when avoiding and reusing aren't possible
- Incinerate -- as a last resort
In practice, we often skip the first two steps and go straight to recycling or incineration. That's convenient, but not sustainable.
Why Reusing Is Better
The calculation is simple: When an item is reused, no new one needs to be produced. No raw materials, no production energy, no shipping from China.
A few examples:
- Second-hand smartphone: saves 48 kg of CO2 per device
- Reusable bottle: already more eco-friendly than single-use from the second use
- Used furniture: avoids the entire production chain -- timber harvesting, processing, packaging, shipping
Studies show: Direct reuse is almost always more energy-efficient than recycling. The product retains its quality, no reprocessing is needed, and there are no quality losses like with material recycling.
Food Waste: The Forgotten Problem
Beyond conventional waste, there's another issue that's often overlooked: food waste.
Switzerland throws away 2.8 million tonnes of food every year. That's 330 kilograms per person. Two-thirds of that was still edible at the time it was thrown away.
The financial damage: 620 francs per person per year going into the bin.
The environmental damage: This waste causes about a quarter of the greenhouse gases produced by our diet. We waste more than a third of all food produced -- and with it the water, energy, and labour that went into producing it.
What This Has to Do with PIKITUP
I'm not writing this to moralise. I'm writing it because I believe we can do better -- and that it's not even that hard.
The concept behind PIKITUP is based on exactly this idea: Passing things someone no longer needs on to someone who can use them. No recycling, no downcycling, no incineration. Simply reusing.
When you no longer want a shelf and someone else picks it up, here's what happens:
- You don't have to drive to the disposal site
- The other person doesn't buy a new shelf
- One fewer shelf gets manufactured
- Nothing ends up in the waste
That's not a revolution. It's common sense that we've somehow forgotten on the road to prosperity.
Small Steps, Big Impact
Nobody's asking you to live zero-waste starting tomorrow. But a few habits make a difference:
Before buying:
- Do I really need this?
- Is it available second-hand?
- Can I borrow it instead of buying it?
Before throwing away:
- Is it really broken or just old?
- Could someone else use this?
- Can I give it away instead of disposing of it?
The curbside culture in Zurich shows that many people have already understood this. A chair outside the front door with a "Free" sign is a small act of sustainability -- more practical and more effective than any recycling symbol.
Switzerland Can Do More
We have the means, the infrastructure, and the awareness. What's sometimes missing is just the convenience. It needs to be easier to pass things on than to throw them away.
That's exactly what we're working on with PIKITUP. A map that shows what's being given away near you. No hassle, no sales rigmarole, no guilty conscience.
Switzerland is one of the most wasteful countries in Europe. But it doesn't have to stay that way. And it starts with each individual -- with every item that gets reused instead of thrown away.
Sources: Swiss Recycle, FOEN, Eurostat, Oceancare, Global Footprint Network, WWF Switzerland. Want to learn more about sustainable alternatives? Write to me at hello@pikitup.ch.