On June 28, 2018, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Stop Plastic Pollution CH (STOPPP), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and hammerdirt published the Swiss Litter Report, “the first Switzerland-wide study on plastic and other waste pollution in Swiss rivers and lakes.”

The study employed a “citizen science”-approach, where litter on Swiss water shores was collected and measured by trained volunteers. According to the report, 65.4% of litter items found were plastics, including 34.1% cigarette butts. Other frequently found items were plastic fragments, styrofoam, glass, paper, candy wrappers, metal bottle caps, aluminum lids and pull tabs, and plastic sheets. In addition, cotton bud sticks, plastic caps, and lollipop sticks were found. “Small litter items were found most often,” STOPPP explained, and “[i]t can be assumed that these small items were carelessly thrown away and that the municipal cleaning teams did not have the capacity to collect them all,” the NGO stated.

STOPPP urges the Swiss government to acknowledge the problem of plastic pollution in Switzerland and thus to follow the European Commission’s plastics strategy (FPF reported) and take measures to ban single-use plastics (FPF reported).

The Swiss broadcasting company Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) aired a report on the Swiss Litter Report and the problem of plastic pollution on the same day in its weekly program “Einstein.SRF also reported on the increasing occurrence of plastic particles in compost (FPF reported).

Read more

STOPP (June 28, 2018). “Swiss litter report.

Swissinfo.ch (June 28, 2018). “Plastic and cigarettes make up bulk of Swiss beach litter.

Sandra Odermatt (June 28, 2018). “Plastikmüll – auch ein Schweizer Problem.Einstein – SRF (in German)

Limmattaler Zeitung (June 28, 2018). “Plastik an Gewässern auch in der Schweiz ein Problem.(in German)

Sandra Odermatt (June 29, 2018). “Weshalb immer mehr Plastik im Kompost landet.SRF (in German)

Reference

Pascal Blarer and Gabriele Kull (June 28, 2018). “Swiss litter report.STOPPP, WWF Schweiz and hammerdirt (pdf; in German)

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