Recycle!

One of the advantage of having long class blocks is that we can take field trips! We went to a recycling center in Lausanne to reinforce the concepts we learned in class.

• They do use magnets and eddy currents to sort the metals.
• Newer cars and electronics are more and more difficult to sort due to the complexity of composite materials.
• Plastics are sent to a even larger facility where they can be sorted by floating (density differences).
• Paper and cardboard are shredded and sold back to to paper manufacturing. However, people are using less paper with modern technology.
• Although electronics have a recycling tax built in to the purchase price, it doesn’t cover the costs to recycle them.

Look at the photo of the truck getting torn to pieces!

The Swiss are environmentally conscious. They get charged 2 CHF per bag of garbage. It is also mandatory to sort plastics, papers, metals, and glass separately for collection.

Originally posted on halfwayaroundtheworld.studentsgoneglobal.com.