I am sure that this topic has been discussed ad nauseum somewhere else on this forum, but I have to wonder if legislating the garbage bag rule (special white ones in Lausanne and the blue ones in fribourg) for the princely sum of chf 2.5 per bag has yielded a lucrative counterfeit garbage bag business somewhere???
Wondering if my "groaned" to "thanked" ratio will get me eventually expelled from EF...
Anyway, don't disagree that legislating behavior change can have a good outcome. Change has to start somewhere.
But... If I consider all the "other products" being sold at night in place st francois at night, I am certain someone has thought about this. Plastic bags are the cheapest thing to make
You do understand that collecting and getting rid of garbage so your city won't look like Naples is actually costing a lot of money, right? The trucks, the people, the burners... basic city management, elementary school 5th grade?
And the police is also paid from taxes to keep your house from being robbed every day by people who have a lesser understanding of modern society.
I've known more than a few cheapskates that put their rubbish in a small plastic bag and chuck it in the public litter bins as they leave for work every couple of days. Never bought an official bin bag since they got here and don't give a monkey's.
When you've got people like that, there's not much market for counterfeit bags.
I don't think the Swiss give a toss how you cross the street but I think most would take exception to people taking the piss with the rubbish disposal.
counterfeit - yes, lucrative - no. To nip this idea in the bud, each place has its own. The counterfeiters gave up as it was costing more to make them, given all the ones they made and couldn't sell off cheap as the 'official' colour had been changed again, than the price they could sell them at.
Let him or her produce counterfeit bags and enjoy what will happen, once he or gets caught. I can assure you the amount you pay for the official bags is nothing against the fines and the costs for lawyers and court.
If I remember well a couple of very smart people tried it a got caught. I think one of them even ended up in prison. Lesson to learn: Do not mix up with our garbage laws
No idea where this St Francois is, but have never seen anything being sold as fallen off the back of a lorry etc in Switzerland,
Rubbish/garbage bags, the cost covers approximately half the cost of actually disposing of rubbish, the remaining is paid by the local village/canton. Mainly in place to encourage people to recycle for free what they can I believe.
Rough summary: a Serbian guy was getting fake Zürich bags manufactured back home and shipping them here by the case to sell in his small grocery store. Police got the tip-off from customs and arrested the guy, confiscated some 13,000 counterfeit trash bags. No way of knowing how long it had been going on or how many were already "in circulation".
The counterfeits bureau described the fakes as surprisingly good, the fact the ties weren't the same shade of blue as the printing was the only major giveaway.
So yes, it's been done. In Zürich at any rate. As Longbyt says, I shouldn't imagine it'd be worth bothering with in smaller towns.
We gonna start with the taxed bags in January, one year after the rest of the canton... I'm a bit nervous about how much it gonna cost us, especially as we still have a kid in nappies
I recall in a previous thread, some local cantons give X amount free to families with babies, but perhaps not all cantons do this. Maybe worth asking at your Gemeinde.
Well it does concentrate the mind. Sometimes generational differences of behaviour are based on some sort of logic, not just new theory, etc. When I was a kid, all terry nappies had to be boiled and washed by hand- so kids were 'potty trained' at the earliest opportunity. When my kids were little, terry nappies were soaked in Nappisan, then had to be hot washed in washing machine and dried on the line when lucky, or on radiators in winter. So kids were potty trained at earliest .....
This is in no way a criticism- but just a reality. Again, there has been a noticed increase of use of cloth diapers here due to new system, and also a marked decrease in time kids stay in nappies. No concessions whatsoever here in our region for new parents.