Switzerland has this reputation for being the cleanest country on earth, so my friend Sven and I wanted to test that in our local village. We gave ourselves 60 minutes, grabbed two trash pickers and some bags, and made a small bet...the winner gets 10 Rappen (about 11 cents) per gram of collected trash .
Main roads and construction sites were super clean, and at first we thought we wouldn't find much. Then we started checking the bushes, field edges, and side paths. Both of our thin bags ripped halfway through so we had to switch to bigger bags.
In one hour, we picked up 7.3 kg (15.4 lbs) of litter:
- Sven (3.1 kg): a thick piece of copper wire, a rusty metal rod, plastic pipes, a Carrefour bag, a single sock, cans, and someone's abandoned underwear in the grass.
- Deeno (4.2 kg): tons of PET bottles and Red Bull cans, an empty wine bottle in the bushes, and a broken kids' scooter with the metal handlebar lying nearby (which basically won me the weigh-in).
A local guy walking by clapped and cheered us on when he saw what we were doing. If you want to see the full challenge and the weigh-in, here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkQicGISyAc