Some of you may remember me rattling on about the Swiss passion for recycling
in the past. The system is quite well thought out. You have to buy official
rubbish bags at approx. Sfr2.50 each and only rubbish in these bags is collected.
These means each household pays for the disposal of it's own rubbish (the
more you produce, the more it costs you) and as recycling is free it pays
to recycle everything possible as it reduces the cost to the household budget.
It now seems that the whole recycling thing runs through other aspects of Swiss life (or should I say death) as well. It appears that a grave is only allowed to exist for twenty five years (this period may vary from canton to canton, my informant wasn't sure). After which the occupant is removed, the headstone returned or recycled and the whole process started again.
Now looking at this logically this makes sense. Switzerland is a small country with a large surface area. Unfortunately large parts of it is up hill and equally large parts down hill ( I'm sure if the could iron it flat it would be the size of Texas). Add to this the bits which are vertical, covered with snow, buried under ice, or at the bottom of a lake and it leaves very little to farm and build on so land is at a premium and recycling it in every way possible is just good sense. All this was well and good but......
This left just one idea, one thought, one question on my mind. The one question on which the above mentioned informant was unwilling to be pressed on. What do they do ..........with....... the......er...........ex-residents of these graves? I don't have an answer. As I say may informant was less than willing to talk on this matter and I thought it better not to press too hard as it was clearly something not to be discussed in polite company. However the imagination boggles Who can say. If I find out I'll let you know otherwise I'll....er.....let sleeping...er...dogs(?) lie.
