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When I was a small child we burned our garbage, an environmental taboo today. I don’t remember what the family did after that except that men came around on smelly trucks every day. Later, when I lived in Paris on my own I used little white plastic grocery store bags and dropped my small amount of garbage in the apartment building bin. The tidiness and economic good sense of Swiss garbage collection surprised me when I moved here: use black plastic bags, tie them tightly, and they are either picked up once or twice a week or you can deliver your bags to collection centres which are emptied regularly.

Once in a while there are debates about whether or not cantons or communes should charge a tax on the bags, but garbage simply marches to the bins most of the time.

This morning I had the opportunity to see just how much of it goes there. One member of the family dropped a set of keys into a large village garbage container over the weekend. We reflected on the cost, not to mention the inconvenience, of replacing the keys and decided it was worth being there when the garbage men arrived early Monday morning. They were nice about it. No, it wasn’t the first time this had happened. No, they haven’t yet had any children fall into these deep bins. They dumped the garbage on the street instead of into their truck and we combed through dozens of black plastic bags but also a large and stinky pile of loose stuff. Coke bottles, sofa cushions. well-used cat litter, a doll’s head, private papers, McDonald’s bags and even a couple belts (too many Big Macs?) rained down on us from the giant bin liner bag.

The men picked it all up, cheerfully, then swept the street, so no trace of our folly remains. My keys were there. They are now soaking in disinfectant. I will never again throw loose garbage in one of those big containers. Please do use those black plastic bags, and tie them tightly.

While we’re on the subject of waste, Ad Age has just run an article, "Is Earth Day the new Christmas?" about the inanity of marketing people "bombarding consumers with green promotions and products designed to get them to buy more products." They point out that this seems somewhat contrary to the spirit of the event. No comment.

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