Sign petition now!

Switzerland can easily do without unnecessary single-use plastics such as take-away packaging, plastic bags and microbeads in personal care products!

Swiss consume an average of 127 kg of plastic per person annually. That’s almost three times the world average. 85-90 % of these plastics in Switzerland are incinerated after only a short period of use and are not recycled, let alone reused. Compared to the actions taken on banning single-use plastics in the EU, Switzerland is lagging far behind. This needs to be changed.

Considering that,

• An increasing share of our throw-away plastic consists of take-away packaging and items which are practically impossible to recycle and therefore end up incinerated – which is far less clean than often claimed – or littered into the environment;
• Single-use plastic bags remain omnipresent in Switzerland. Notwithstanding reductions, we still use tens of millions of plastic bags per year;
• Indisputable evidence shows the long-term harm caused by microbeads added to cosmetic and personal care products continuously leaking out into the environment,

we call on Swiss authorities to finally take decisive action.

In each of these cases, federal authorities have the authority and discretionary power to take measures to prohibit the use of these superfluous, unnecessary plastics. It is time for the government to assume its responsibility.

Support our call with your signature

While the Swiss government is proactive within international fora to address plastic pollution, we call on the Swiss federal government to be consistent in its policy and act on national level, too. Stop shifting away your responsibility, but apply the instruments already in place within the Environmental Protection Act! Under this law, the Federal Council can ban the single-use plastic items, such as take-away items and plastic bags from the Swiss territory, independent of the material used, and can stop the sale of cosmetic and personal products containing microbeads in Switzerland. We call upon the government to do so.