You put shit in the correct bin.

In the trash room of your apartment building the bins are usually extremely clearly labelled, and plentiful.

The reason Switzerland is so clean and nice is because there are a set of ground rules for the benefit of everyone that are rigorously enforced.

They learn to recycle in the proper places. Styrofoam, cooking oils, metals, glass by color (although all in the same recycling place), paper and carton gets picked from the curb in certain (different) days... they receive the yearly schedule and all necessary addresses in the post and follow it.

So you wanted to move to switzerland, but not anymore because you refuse to learn recycling?

It is really not that hard.

And the fine is high, but if you don't enforce rules, the rules become meaningless and then for example the recycled paper worthless, because there is too much plastic in them.

Edit: but to be clear, I would not call the police on someone who did not do proper recycling. I would simply tell them directly.

> What happens to the people who barely scrap by but who receive this type of fines?

You never do it again, that's for sure. Switzerland is a very fine-heavy society. Sounds like a bit more research before developing that wish would have been beneficial for you... good for you that you didn't follow that wish.

>What happens to the people who barely scrap by but who receive this type of fines?

Really it isn't that big of a problem. A judge would likely look at your income but if you want to compare there are better/worse things to look at, like healthcare might be one. It is after all avoidable by just recycling unlike needing healthcare.

> it's en par with

Total aside, just FYI it's 'on par with'; in this usage 'par' comes directly from Latin without passing French, where 'par' is not about equality. I think the French equivalent would be 'égal à'.