Butt Ban Debated Long Queues Persist At Airport UNIBAS Hands Out Honorary Degrees

News For 4 December 2018

Since May, a ban on discarding used cigarette butts except in designated receptacles has been in effect.  Anyone caught tossing their butts was meant to be fined 80 CHF.  However, the city has come clean with its records and said that only 42 people have received citations - despite the many millions of butts which continue to regularly rain on streets and sidewalks.  Basel Stadt councilor Eduard Rutschmann complained that the campaign to raise awareness about the fines cost a lot of money, but did not yield the desired results for reduced butts.  Dominik Egli, manager of the city's sanitation systems pointed out that overall littering is improved in 2018 but that it would be difficult to attribute any of the improvement to the campaign to eradicate cigarette butt litter.

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The Basel/Mulhouse Euroairport serving the region has become notorious for its long queues of arriving passengers at immigration control.  It seems airport management, in compliance with a state of emergency France declared in response to terrorist attacks, decided to screen every arriving passenger.  Recently, however, and in response to the ever-increasing queues, management has decided to reduce its screening process to depend on passengers' flight of origin.  However, Raymond Cron, director of the airport, pointed out that the real problem is that the facilities were designed to handle 5-6 million passengers per year, well below the current and actual traffic of approximately 8 million per year, and growing.

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On Friday, the University Of Basel announced this year's crop of honorary doctorate recipients.  Among those honored is Hansjörg Schneider, who at 80 years old, received his doctorate for his contributions to contemporary Swiss literature.  At the other extreme, Vitalik Buterin, received a UniBas Faculty of Economics doctorate for his contributions to crypto currencies, smart contracts and institution design.  The announcements by the university were made via Twitter.