Smoking Ban For SBB; Man Mistakes Basel For Shooting Gallery; Hotel Regina Turns Fountains To Jacuzzis; Rhein-side Recycling Stations Removed

News For 7 November 2017

Smoking on Swiss trains and inside train stations has been banned since 2005.  However, the SBB will now test a program to completely ban smoking on their premises, including train platforms.  The one-year pilot program is set to begin in December after which the SBB will decide to extend the program.  The program will take effect in Basel, Nyon and Zurich.

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This past Saturday in the Kannenfeldplatz neighborhood, an unidentified man used a firearm to shoot at three parked cars and two BVB buses from his balcony. The police found multiple bullet holes in the vehicles in question, on Kannenfeldstrasse and Metzerstrasse. The police were able to arrest a suspect, a 45-year-old man from the Philippines, who was seen shooting from his balcony by his neighbor, who then called the police. The police assume that the bullet holes in the buses, which were driving past Kannenfeldplatz at the time that the shots were fired, are from the same gun that hit the parked cars.

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Don't put away your bathing suits just yet! Basel based work collective Hotel Regina intends to bring back one of their most popular projects for the upcoming winter season.  Last January, the team set about to heat public fountains using a portable furnace and a stationary-bike operated pump, turning the drinking fountain into a public hot-tub.  The concept proved so popular that four locations were operated during its last run.  No word yet on when the tub heating will begin again, but no doubt soon, as it takes at least 15 hours of pump pedaling to warm one of the fountains.

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The eight recycling stations which were placed along the Rhine this Summer as part of a pilot program, have proven to be ineffective and will be removed. The littering rate has stayed fairly constant, and only a fraction of disposed trash was correctly sorted. The recycling containers, with separate containers for PET bottles, Aluminum and glass, collected a total of 7.2 tons of trash. The Basel department for construction and transport states that its expectations were only partly met, as a lot of recyclable waste was also thrown into the big blue “Stadtreinigung” containers as before, and the amount of litter left on the ground didn’t change much.