Swiss Recycling – Dan The Man

Every Saturday morning I am a woman with a mission as I make my way down to the bottom end of the village, next to the field with the donkey, where Danny hangs out dressed for the Antarctic, a welcoming smile masking the keen sight of an eagle.

 

Monsieur Daniel Baumgartner aka Dan The Man

It has taken a while to prove to my man Dan that I am serious about sorting my rubbish; that I know the difference between Fer Blanc (tins) and Aluminium and that I have learned at the knee of his well-worn pantalons that supermarket carrier bags cannot be thrown in with the paper as they have been treated with an anti-humidity plastic coating and have to go into déchets encombrants (bulky waste) but not the big one, the smaller one for petit déchets (anything under 60 cms).  And I do care that they can make a wheelchair out of my bottle tops – heck they can build a space ship with the tops I contribute.

Danny and I have had trust issues in the past because I speak with “un accent anglais” despite my 20 years of living here, and thus was looked upon quasi-suspiciously as not knowing my PET from my ALU.  My gender wasn’t helping either.  He’s suspicious of any woman who does the recycling as deep in his heart he feels this is a man’s job.  Any mistake, and at the beginning there were many, he was swiftly onto me the eagle pouncing his prey and I was mouse meat.

So imagine my surprise and utter delight to be met by Danny recently with la Bise – kisses on both cheeks.  This was an official inauguration into the déchetterie club.  I had passed and it had nothing, I can assure you, to do with the bottles of wine Danny gets from us at Christmas.

Not only are paper, cardboard, bottles, tins, Nespresso capsules, batteries, paint, mattresses, compost etc. etc. lovingly sorted by Danny but he also has a little art gallery going.  An array of old pictures, mostly amateur oil paintings à la Van Gogh, hang on the wall between the old neon light tubes and the cardboard crunching machine.  This area is unofficially Danny’s office as curator of our village’s history:  The hobbies enthusiastically embraced then tired of; the abandoned toys; the rusty bicycles; the piles of electronic gadgets; the old fashioned skis; enough books to start a library.  All witness to the changes and growth of the 900 lives in our village.

Whereas in the past villagers would congregate around the dozen or so magnificent stone fountains ostensibly to do the washing, today it is the recycling station where neighbours meet to catch up on news.  Luckily for us we foreigners are fast learners and if you time it right on a Saturday morning you get to share a glass of wine with the locals because, if you abide by their rules, their hospitality is warm and without prejudice.

Copyright Jules Ritter March 2008