Switzerland has enlightened me. The Swiss really have their green thing going on, and there’s a few things that have me scratching my head thinking “why the hell doesn’t the US adopt this stuff?” Are we too proud to admit that another country has done something better? It’s time to swallow our pride and adopt a few of these things that the Swiss do so well:
- Toilets that have two flush buttons
One small button for #1 that emits just enough water to flush’er down, another larger button that takes the kids to the water park. I can only imagine how much water this saves throughout the country!
- Escalators that only run when there’s people on them
At first i thought they were broken, but as you approach them they turn on automatically. Makes sense.
- Fixed temperature water faucets
These water faucets let you fix the temperature so that its always the same when you turn it on by pulling the lever out. Brilliant.
- Green Transportation
The swiss railway system can take you pretty much anywhere you need to go, and once you get there you’ll see lots of energy efficient small cars, electric buses, and lots of people walking to their destination.
- Organic (“Bio”) locally produced foods
Most of the produce in the stores is organic. When something is not local, they tell you where it came from. - No plastic or paper bags in grocery stores
Everyone brings their own reusable bags. You don’t even have the option for paper or plastic. This should be a law in the U.S.
With the U.S. consuming 25% of the worlds energy, and being the world’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, you’d think we’d be looking into what other countries are doing right to consume so little.
I think the “green” toilet is über cool! Frankly I’m surprised this sort of thing doesn’t exist in Boulder market-since these folks seem to be always finding more green ways to exist. I want one for my bathroom someday. Do you know what company makes the toilet?
Yeah, I’m surprised it doesn’t exist everywhere. I’m sure you can get em somewhere. Maybe Home Depot? No clue the name though.
I am checking now on local availability of the toilet and fixed-temp faucets. Just so happens we are getting ready to kick-off a major remodel so this is perfect timing. Will post if I can find them in the US and/or Hawaii markets.
Nice! I actually saw a fixed-temp faucet here in HI the other day. The duel flush toilet may be a challenge though.
This was informative! We have homecoming week at universite in a few weeks, and as partof that our organizations participation is inclined to also choose a country to talk about and present food from. Since our organization is STAND, student’s taking action in nature;’s defense, we chose to do switzerland! Yay!!
To going green and fondue!