Many spend the sports holidays in a holiday resort. However, waste cannot be disposed of separately everywhere. Two examples.
Glass, paper, cardboard, aluminium, tin cans or old batteries: these recyclables do not belong in household waste and must be collected separately. The Federal Waste Ordinance also stipulates: “Recyclable parts of municipal waste such as glass, paper, cardboard, etc. should be collected separately and recycled as far as possible.”
But what most people in Switzerland take for granted at home cannot be practiced everywhere on vacation.
No waste separation in the holiday resort
In the Swisspeak Resort in Meiringen (BE), for example, there is only one chute for rubbish bags. Holiday guests who want to dispose of their rubbish separately have to walk about half a kilometer through the village to the municipal collection containers with their empty bottles and tin cans.
“It would be nice if we had the opportunity to collect separately here, but otherwise everything is perfect here,” says a guest from Lausanne. Other respondents and various comments on the Internet will see this soon. The complex with 79 modern holiday apartments has been open since 2019.
It would be nice if we had the opportunity to collect separately here, but otherwise everything is perfect here.
The holiday resort is operated by Interhome, a company of the Hotelplan Group, which belongs to Migros. But when it comes to sustainability, the Swisspeak Resort Meiringen still has some catching up to do.
Legend:
In the Swisspeak Resort Meiringen there are disposal chutes, but only for rubbish bags.
SRF
“Of course, we take the feedback from our guests very seriously, which is why we are also in contact with the owner so that a solution to the problem can be found as quickly as possible,” says Bianca Gähweiler, Communications Manager at Interhome.
Hotel or holiday apartment complex?
The managing director of the Swisspeak Resorts, Sébastien Travelletti, refers to the municipality of Meiringen: “You classify us as a hotel, we have to do the separate collection ourselves”. Since there is no garbage bag fee, the guests have no incentive to separate the waste. It had already been tried, but the international guests in particular would not sort waste.
“But we’re not a hotel, because the guests have their own kitchens and their own rubbish. And we will not open the guests’ garbage cans to sort them.”
We will not open guest bins to sort.
The municipality of Meiringen emphasizes that there is indeed a garbage bag fee for private households. However, due to its size, the Swisspeak holiday resort is classified as a company and therefore has to dispose of its own waste.
“During the building permit process, the municipality of Meiringen (…) stated that a future-oriented disposal concept (…) should be set up for the holiday village,” the community told SRF. It should be disposed of with separation systems in an environmentally friendly and resource-saving manner.
Reka holiday villages separate waste
The Swiss travel fund (Reka) shows that there is another way. It operates 20 holiday villages throughout Switzerland. According to Reka, all facilities have separate waste collection systems. This is also the case in the holiday village of Sörenberg (LU).
“We collect everything separately,” explains operations manager Urs Christener. Green waste, food leftovers, PET bottles, coffee capsules, textiles, plastics, tinplate, cardboard and paper are collected separately within the facility. Holiday guests only have to cross the street to collect the old glass. “We have our containers with residual waste for what’s left over,” says Christener.