For a few days I fled from the Caribana music festival because during this event it is impossible to sleep due to noise pollution. Switzerland, despite being so strict about other forms of noise pollution is lax about the noise pollution from music festivals. Most people plan holidays to flee it. I did too, but I still denounce it. Having said this I stayed in a small village half way up the Jura and was able to walk a short distance to recycle cardboard, cans and PET bottles.
My definition of Mobilité Douce and the Swiss definition are quite different. For me Mobilité Douce is walking, hiking, cycling and other sports that require a certain dedication and desire to cover long distances. In contrast Switzerland seems to see Mobilité Douce as going from home to the shops, while leaving the car at home. The journeys seem to be short, and at a slower pace.
When I walk and cycle into Nyon, almost every day, I am struck by the sight of people waiting to catch a bus to travel 400 meters or less.
The building I live in has solar panels on the roof and a heat pump. This allows it to be more energy efficient than other buildings. It also has thick insulation on the walls and more. Recently I have been playing with Homeassistant and electricity Maps. Electricity Maps is a real time representation of energy flows showing which countries are using green energy as well as how much of that energy is currently green.
Yesterday I had to drive from Nyon to Founex to do a favour for someone. Normally I would have used the car but it was in for a tire change. I was switching from winter to summer tires at last.
On the way to Founex I took farm roads as much as possible because they’re less likely to have cars, and I’m less likely to be in the way of those cars.
I don’t like to go recycling for two reasons. I usually end my daily walk just at the time when the recycling centre opens during week days so I don’t want to go back and spend time that I could invest in other chores in something as relaxed as recycling. The second reason is that because traffic is bad I usually prefer not to be one of the cars driving down a narrow path when it is not urgent to do so.
I have played with Dolce Gusto machines and Nespresso machines and both of them have the same flaw. They’re quick and convenient when you’re preparing coffee but less convenient when you need to get rid of the capsules. With Nespresso getting rid of the aluminium capsules is easy, once you have a container for them. You amass them at home and when you go to the recycling centre you have two wheelie bins devoted to the task of recovering the aluminium capsules and their content.
The more I play with the electric car and the more I feel that it affects how I spend my time. Today I would have written a blog post before going out, but I didn’t. I didn’t write before going out because I knew that the battery would be down to 30 percent by the time I got to my destination, and 30 percent of battery power on a car means 14 hours of charge time.
Today I learned that Switzerland has a map that shows which communes have the most swimming pools per capita. Nyon has 50 swimming pools. That’s 2,3 per thousand people. Blonay St Legier has 336. Collonge- Bellerive has 491, as you’d expect. Switzerland has, on average, one swimming pool per 155 people. They cover an area of around 2,500,000 square meters. The Water Impact
Switzerland has 56,000 private pools that contain 3.
Catching the train to Geneva and back to Nyon costs about 14CHF per day, depending on whether you have paid 180 CHF for the half fare or not. In contrast two Continent GP 5000 tires cost about 110CHF and you can go to Geneva and back a few hundred times. Place Des Nations with the broken chair, and the fountains
The loop from Nyon to Geneva is about 20-30 kilometres. This is a very easy distance to cycle once you get to the right level of fitness.
Today is Earth Day, as Google, Moleskine and other companies are reminding us of. Earth Day is an opportunity to think about how to reduce our carbon footprint and ecological impact. Sigg recently began to sell aluminium water bottles that are made entirely from recycled aluminium. Instead of encouraging us to recycle our old bottles, they have skipped a step, and now make their bottles from recycled aluminium directly. It takes five uses of a recycled Sigg water bottle for the carbon footprint to be offset.