Why Switzerland and Japan are Litter-Free
Switzerland is one of the world’s most beautiful, clean and green countries. It’s not the culture to drop litter, and recycling is a almost a national pastime! Recently, the Swiss government has upped the fines. Throwing away just a sandwich wrapper or cigarette butt will be a standard fine (around £90). Or £180 for 2 items of litter. And larger fines from £200 to around £18,000 (20,000 Swiss Francs).
If you dropped so much as a sweet wrapper in Switzerland, the police would be after you. And you would never have rivers choked with litter, like we do here.
It’s illegal to drop litter in England, but many people don’t take much notice. Despite councils having the power to fine and issue Litter Abatement Orders to private landowners.
How Strict Rules Keep Streets Clean
In Switzerland, dropping litter is on a par with theft. Many cantons set on-the-spot fines for dropping rubbish, with harsh penalties for serious or repeated offences.
Daily checks are carried out by council staff. As a result, it’s never the case that you get there what you get here:
- Rivers clogged with years-old rubbish
- Every street containing dropped cans, bottles and litter.
- Supermarket surrounds swimming in litter.
- People dropping litter out of car windows.
It helps that Switzerland (like most of Europe) has deposit recycling schemes, where people get money back, if returning their bottles or cans to vending machines. The law has been delayed in the UK, as the English government does not want glass bottles included. Why? It happens everywhere else.
In countries with deposit return schemes, plastic bottle recycling is over 80%, cans above 90% and glass around 95%. Some people even make an income, just going around hovering up litter, and getting money for popping it back into machines!
Although organisations like Clean Up UK have wonderful litter-picking volunteers, it’s no good if the streets are soon swimming in rubbish again. If they knew that the litter was not coming back (thanks to fines, deposit return schemes, zero waste packaging and council help), their job would be more rewarding.
Why Japan’s Streets are Almost Litter-Free
Another country where you’ll never find litter on the streets is Japan. People who walk their dogs, even carry little bottles of water, and ‘wash the pavement’ after a poop!
Why no litter? For two reasons. One is that as an isolated set of islands with many mountains, there are few places to ‘shove everything to landfill’. One town even has 45 different recycling categories!
The other is ”Meiwaki’. This is a word in Japanese society, which means to avoid causing trouble to others. Not dropping litter is part of this. They know that if they drop a broken bottle on the pavement, it could cause a child or dog to cut a foot or paw. And even if not, it means someone else (a volunteer or council worker) is going to have to take the time to brush the broken glass up). It’s just not done in Japan.
Locals even play a game ‘Spogomi’, to see who can pick up the most litter off the streets, in the least time. In East London, groups have used their litter-picking kits to do the same, picking up all the trash left on Hackney Marshes.
The ‘world champion team’ is from Britain. It takes 45 minutes to collect, then 20 minutes to sort litter. One (marathon-running) member said it was the sorest her legs have ever been, due to using more muscle groups!
People in Tokyo cannot believe it, when they see that there is not one piece of litter on the streets (even when the litter bins were removed, after nerve gas left in them caused a terrorist attack in 1995, which left 13 people dead and 6000 injured).
There are no ‘anti-litter signs’ in Japan, as they are not needed. The only signs are for tourists, to let them know that when visiting their country, it’s not their job to pick up litter that tourists leave behind.
