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Aluminum cans and PET bottles instead of edelweiss and gentian – our idyllic mountain world has been littered for decades.
Littering in the Alps is not a modern phenomenon. Decades ago, veritable small garbage dumps were created around SAC huts. Extremely problematic! Carelessly discarded aluminum cans or bottles not only destroy the beautiful landscape. They also poison the environment and endanger plants and animals. Waste has a long lifespan in nature in particular – this also applies to mountains, where climatic conditions slow down its decomposition.
Everything that stays on the alp
So-called clean-up teams are always busy collecting and removing this garbage.
Swiss waste sins
It is such wasteful sins that the Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter lets speak for themselves in impressive images in his documentary «Matter out of Place». So he drives up an excavator in the middle of an inconspicuous meadow somewhere in the canton of Solothurn. What this brings to light from the ground is proof that a former garbage dump was filled in according to the principle “out of sight out of mind”.
That would of course be a no-go these days. Even in the remote Oberwalliser Bettmeralp, rubbish is professionally disposed of. However, the garbage truck has to be transported up by cable car each time. There is no road down into the valley. This seemingly bizarre scene also finds its place in Geyrhalter’s documentary.
“Matter out of place”
However, Geyrhalters is not only concerned with waste disposal and waste-related sins in “clean” Switzerland. The director shows waste growths in the most remote places on this planet.
These collect on the seabed, on beaches, in the Arctic, in the jungle or even high up in the mountains. Sometimes they are wrecked cars, then again old televisions and sometimes simply rubble. In any case, rubbish that reminds us that we humans have left our inglorious calling cards everywhere.
Geyrhalter’s documentary celebrated its highly acclaimed world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022. From March 23, 2023, his work can now also be seen in selected Swiss cinemas for the first time.
Radio SRF 1, March 23, 2023, 5:40 a.m.; dae