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Federal Act
on the Protection of the Environment
(Environmental Protection Act, EPA)

The Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation,

based on the Article 74 paragraphs 1 of the Federal Constitution1,2
and having considered a Federal Council Dispatch dated 31 October 19793,

decrees:

1SR 101.

2Amended by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

3BBl 1979 III 749

Title 1 Principles and General Provisions

Chapter 1 Principles

Art. 1 Aim  

1 This Act is in­ten­ded to pro­tect people, an­im­als and plants, their bio­lo­gic­al com­munit­ies and hab­it­ats against harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances and to pre­serve the nat­ur­al found­a­tions of life sus­tain­ably, in par­tic­u­lar bio­lo­gic­al di­versity and the fer­til­ity of the soil.4

2 Early pre­vent­ive meas­ures must be taken in or­der to lim­it ef­fects which could be­come harm­ful or a nuis­ance.

4 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 2 Polluter pays principle  

Any per­son who causes meas­ures to be taken un­der this Act must bear the costs.

Art. 3 Reservation of other legislation  

1 Stricter reg­u­la­tions in oth­er fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion are re­served.

2 Ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances and ion­ising rays are covered by the le­gis­la­tion on pro­tec­tion against ra­di­ation and on atom­ic en­ergy.5

5Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 4 Implementing provisions based on other federal legislation  

1 Reg­u­la­tions on the en­vir­on­ment­al ef­fects of air pol­lu­tion, noise, vi­bra­tions and ra­di­ation that are based on oth­er fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion must com­ply with the prin­ciples of lim­it­a­tion of emis­sions (Art. 11), am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues (Art. 13–15), alarm val­ues (Art. 19) and plan­ning val­ues (Art. 23–25).6

2 Reg­u­la­tions on the hand­ling of sub­stances and or­gan­isms af­fect­ing the en­vir­on­ment that are based on oth­er fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion must com­ply with the prin­ciples gov­ern­ing en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances (Art. 26–28) and or­gan­isms (Art. 29a–29h).7

6Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

7 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 5 Exemptions for reasons of national defence  

If the in­terests of na­tion­al de­fence so re­quire, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates ex­emp­tions from the pro­vi­sions of this Act by means of or­din­ances.

Art. 68  

8 Re­pealed by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aar­hus Con­ven­tion), with ef­fect from 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

Chapter 2 General Provisions

Art. 7 Definitions  

1 Ef­fects are air pol­lu­tion, noise, vi­bra­tions, ra­di­ation, wa­ter pol­lu­tion or oth­er in­ter­fer­ence in wa­ter, soil pol­lu­tion, modi­fic­a­tions of the ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al of or­gan­isms or modi­fic­a­tions of bio­lo­gic­al di­versity caused by the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion of in­stall­a­tions, by the hand­ling of sub­stances, or­gan­isms or waste, or by the cul­tiv­a­tion of the soil.9

2 Air pol­lu­tion, noise, vi­bra­tions and ra­di­ation are re­ferred to as emis­sions when dis­charged from in­stall­a­tions, and as am­bi­ent pol­lu­tion levels at their point of im­pact.

3 Air pol­lu­tion means modi­fic­a­tion of the nat­ur­al con­di­tion of the air, in par­tic­u­lar, through smoke, soot, dust, gases, aer­o­sols, steams, odours or waste heat.10

4 In­fra­sound and ul­tra sound are re­garded as noise.

4bis Soil pol­lu­tion is the phys­ic­al, chem­ic­al and bio­lo­gic­al modi­fic­a­tion of the nat­ur­al con­di­tion of the soil. Soil means the un­sealed top lay­er of land where plants may grow.11

5 Sub­stances are nat­ur­al or man­u­fac­tured chem­ic­al ele­ments and their com­pounds. Pre­par­a­tions (mix­tures, blends and solu­tions) and art­icles con­tain­ing such sub­stances are also re­garded as sub­stances.12

5bis Or­gan­isms are any cel­lu­lar or non-cel­lu­lar bio­lo­gic­al en­tity cap­able of rep­lic­a­tion or of trans­fer­ring ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al. Mix­tures and art­icles con­tain­ing such en­tit­ies are also re­garded as or­gan­isms.13

5ter Ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or­gan­isms are or­gan­isms whose ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al has been changed in a way that does not oc­cur un­der nat­ur­al con­di­tions by cross­breed­ing or nat­ur­al re­com­bin­a­tion.14

5quater Patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms are or­gan­isms that can cause dis­ease.15

6 Waste is any move­able ma­ter­i­al dis­posed of by its hold­er or the dis­pos­al of which is re­quired in the pub­lic in­terest.16

6bis Dis­pos­al of waste in­cludes its re­cov­ery or de­pos­it in a land­fill as well as the pre­lim­in­ary stages of col­lec­tion, trans­port, stor­age and treat­ment. «Treat­ment» is any phys­ic­al, chem­ic­al or bio­lo­gic­al modi­fic­a­tion of the waste.17

6ter Hand­ling means any activ­ity in con­nec­tion with sub­stances, or­gan­isms or waste, and in par­tic­u­lar their man­u­fac­ture, im­port, ex­port, put­ting in cir­cu­la­tion, use, stor­age, trans­port or dis­pos­al.18

7 In­stall­a­tions are build­ings, traffic routes and oth­er fixed fa­cil­it­ies as well as modi­fic­a­tions of the ter­rain. Ap­pli­ances, ma­chines, vehicles, ships and air­craft are also re­garded as in­stall­a­tions.

8 En­vir­on­ment­al in­form­a­tion is in­form­a­tion in the fields ad­dressed by this Act and in the fields ad­dressed by le­gis­la­tion on the pro­tec­tion of nature and cul­tur­al her­it­age, land­scape pro­tec­tion, wa­ters pro­tec­tion, pro­tec­tion against nat­ur­al haz­ards, forest con­ser­va­tion, hunt­ing, fish­ing, gene tech­no­logy and cli­mate pro­tec­tion.19

9 Bio­gen­ic mo­tor and thermal fuels are li­quid or gaseous mo­tor and thermal fuels that are pro­duced from bio­mass or oth­er re­new­able en­ergy sources.20

9 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

10Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

11In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

12 Amended by An­nex No II 2 of the Chem­ic­als Act of 15 Dec. 2000, in force since 1 Aug. 2005 (AS 2004 4763, 2005 2293; BBl 2000 687).

13In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

14In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

15 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

16Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

17In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

18In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445). Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

19 In­ser­ted by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aar­hus Con­ven­tion), in force since 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

20 In­ser­ted by the An­nex to the FA of 21 March 2014 (AS 2016 2661; BBl 2013 57375783). Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

Art. 8 Assessment of effects  

Ef­fects are as­sessed in­di­vidu­ally, col­lect­ively and ac­cord­ing to their ac­tions in com­bin­a­tion.

Art. 921  

21 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, with ef­fect from 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 10 Disaster prevention  

1 Any per­son who op­er­ates or in­tends to op­er­ate in­stall­a­tions which, in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, could ser­i­ously dam­age people or their nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment must take the meas­ures re­quired to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion and the en­vir­on­ment.22 In par­tic­u­lar, suit­able sites must be chosen, the re­quired safety dis­tances must be ob­served, tech­nic­al safety meas­ures must be taken and the mon­it­or­ing of the in­stall­a­tion and or­gan­isa­tion of the alarm sys­tem must be en­sured.

2 The can­tons co­ordin­ate the ser­vices re­spons­ible for dis­aster pre­ven­tion and des­ig­nate a re­port­ing agency.

3 The op­er­at­or of the in­stall­a­tion must im­me­di­ately re­port any ex­traordin­ary event to the re­port­ing agency.23

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may pro­hib­it by or­din­ance cer­tain pro­duc­tion meth­ods and the keep­ing of cer­tain stocks if there is no oth­er way of pro­tect­ing the pop­u­la­tion and the nat­ur­al en­vir­on­ment ad­equately.

22Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

23Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Chapter 3 Environmental Impact Assessment24

24 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 July 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 10a Environmental impact assessment  

1 Be­fore tak­ing any de­cision on the plan­ning, con­struc­tion or modi­fic­a­tion of in­stall­a­tions, an au­thor­ity must as­sess their im­pact on the en­vir­on­ment at the earli­est pos­sible stage.

2 The re­quire­ment of an en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment ap­plies to in­stall­a­tions that could cause sub­stan­tial pol­lu­tion to en­vir­on­ment­al areas to the ex­tent that it is prob­able that com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­tions on en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion can only be en­sured through meas­ures spe­cif­ic to the pro­ject or site.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil des­ig­nates the types of in­stall­a­tion that are sub­ject to an en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment; it may stip­u­late threshold val­ues above which the as­sess­ment must be car­ried out. It re­views the types of in­stall­a­tion and threshold val­ues peri­od­ic­ally and ad­justs these if re­quired.

Art. 10b Environmental impact report  

1 Any per­son who wishes to plan, con­struct or modi­fy an in­stall­a­tion that is sub­ject to an en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment must sub­mit an en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact re­port to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity. This forms the basis for the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment.

2 The re­port con­tains all the in­form­a­tion re­quired to as­sess the pro­ject in ac­cord­ance with the en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions. It is drawn up in ac­cord­ance with the guidelines is­sued by the en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion agen­cies and in­cludes the fol­low­ing:

a.
the ex­ist­ing con­di­tion;
b.25
the pro­ject, in­clud­ing pro­posed meas­ures for the pro­tec­tion of the en­vir­on­ment and in the event of dis­aster, and an out­line of the main al­tern­at­ives, if need be stud­ied by the ap­plic­ant;
c.
the fore­see­able re­sid­ual en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact.

3 In or­der to pre­pare for the re­port, a pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion is car­ried out. If the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion con­clus­ively as­cer­tains the ef­fects on the en­vir­on­ment and the en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures re­quired, the res­ults of the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion are deemed to be the re­port.

4 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may re­quest in­form­a­tion or fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion. It may call for ex­pert re­ports; be­fore do­ing so, the au­thor­ity must al­low in­ter­ested parties the op­por­tun­ity to state their opin­ions.

25 Amended by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aar­hus Con­ven­tion), in force since 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

Art. 10c Assessment of the report  

1 The en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion agen­cies as­sess the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tion and the re­port and pro­poses the meas­ures re­quired to the com­pet­ent de­cision-mak­ing au­thor­ity. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues reg­u­la­tions on the time lim­its for the as­sess­ment.

2 The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity must also con­sult the Fed­er­al Of­fice for the En­vir­on­ment (the Fed­er­al Of­fice) when the as­sess­ment con­cerns re­finer­ies, alu­mini­um smelt­ers, thermal power sta­tions, or large cool­ing towers. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­tend the duty to con­sult to cov­er oth­er in­stall­a­tions.

Art. 10d Public access to the report  

1 Any per­son may in­spect the re­port and the res­ults of the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment un­less over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests re­quire secrecy.

2 Trade and busi­ness secrecy must be pre­served in all cases.

Chapter 4 Environmental Information26

26 Inserted by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aarhus Convention), in force since 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

Art. 10e Environmental information and advice  

1 The au­thor­it­ies shall in­form the pub­lic ad­equately about en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion and levels of en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion; in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
they shall pub­lish stud­ies on en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion and on the suc­cess of meas­ures un­der this Act (Art. 44);
b.
they may, provided it is of gen­er­al in­terest and hav­ing con­sul­ted those con­cerned, pub­lish:
1.
the res­ults of the con­form­ity as­sess­ment of series-pro­duced in­stall­a­tions (Art. 40),
2.
the res­ults of in­spec­tions of in­stall­a­tions,
3.
the in­form­a­tion un­der Art­icle 46.

2 Over­rid­ing private and pub­lic in­terests in con­fid­en­ti­al­ity and man­u­fac­tur­ing and busi­ness secrecy are re­served in every case.

3 The en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion agen­cies shall ad­vise the au­thor­it­ies and private in­di­vidu­als. They shall ad­vise the pub­lic on en­vir­on­ment­ally sound be­ha­viour and re­com­mend meas­ures to re­duce en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion.

4 En­vir­on­ment­al in­form­a­tion must if pos­sible be made avail­able as open di­git­al data re­cords.

Art. 10f Environmental reports  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall as­sess the state of the en­vir­on­ment in Switzer­land at least every four years and shall sub­mit a re­port on the res­ults to the the Fed­er­al As­sembly.

Art. 10g Freedom of information in the case of environmental information  

1 Any per­son has the right to in­spect en­vir­on­ment­al in­form­a­tion in of­fi­cial doc­u­ments and in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to en­ergy reg­u­la­tions that re­late the en­vir­on­ment and to re­quest in­form­a­tion from the au­thor­it­ies about the con­tent of these doc­u­ments.

2 In the case of fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies, this right is gov­erned by the Free­dom of In­form­a­tion Act of 17 Decem­ber 200427 (FoIA). Art­icle 23 FoIA ap­plies only to doc­u­ments that con­tain in­form­a­tion un­der para­graph 1 re­lat­ing to nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tions.

3 The right to in­spect also ap­plies in the case of pub­lic cor­por­a­tions and private in­di­vidu­als who have been en­trus­ted with en­force­ment du­ties but which do not have the power to is­sue rul­ings in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act of 20 Decem­ber 196828. In these cases, the com­pet­ent en­force­ment au­thor­ity shall is­sue rul­ings un­der Art­icle 15 FoIA.

4 In the case of can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, the right is gov­erned by can­ton­al law. If the can­tons have not is­sued pro­vi­sions on the ac­cess to doc­u­ments, they shall ap­ply the pro­vi­sions of this Act and the FoIA mu­tatis mutandis.

Title 2 Pollution Control

Chapter 1 Air Pollution, Noise, Vibrations and Radiation

Section 1 Emissions

Art. 11 Principles  

1 Air pol­lu­tion, noise, vi­bra­tions and ra­di­ation are lim­ited by meas­ures taken at their source (lim­it­a­tion of emis­sions).

2 Ir­re­spect­ive of the ex­ist­ing en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion, as a pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ure emis­sions are lim­ited as much as tech­no­logy and op­er­at­ing con­di­tions al­low, provided that this is eco­nom­ic­ally ac­cept­able.

3 Emis­sions are lim­ited more strictly if the ef­fects are found or ex­pec­ted to be harm­ful or a nuis­ance, tak­ing ac­count of the ex­ist­ing level of en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion.

Art. 12 Limitation of emissions  

1 Emis­sions are lim­ited by is­su­ing:

a.
max­im­um emis­sion val­ues;
b.
reg­u­la­tions on con­struc­tion and equip­ment;
c.
traffic or op­er­at­ing reg­u­la­tions;
d.
reg­u­la­tions on the heat in­su­la­tion of build­ings;
e.
reg­u­la­tions on thermal and mo­tor fuels.

2 Lim­its are pre­scribed by or­din­ance or, in cases where an or­din­ance makes no such pro­vi­sion, by rul­ings based dir­ectly on this Act.

Section 2 Ambient Pollution Levels

Art. 13 Ambient limit values  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil stip­u­lates by or­din­ance the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues for as­sess­ing harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances.

2 In do­ing so, it also takes ac­count of the ef­fects of pol­lu­tion levels on par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive groups such as chil­dren, the sick, the eld­erly and preg­nant wo­men.

Art. 14 Ambient limit values for air pollution  

The am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues for air pol­lu­tion must be set so that, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge and ex­per­i­ence, am­bi­ent air pol­lu­tion be­low these levels:

a.
does not en­danger people, an­im­als or plants, their bio­lo­gic­al com­munit­ies and hab­it­ats;
b.
does not ser­i­ously af­fect the well-be­ing of the pop­u­la­tion;
c.
does not dam­age build­ings;
d.
does not harm soil fer­til­ity, ve­get­a­tion or wa­ters.
Art. 15 Ambient limit values 25 for noise and vibrations  

Am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues for noise and vi­bra­tions must be set so that, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge and ex­per­i­ence, am­bi­ent noise be­low these levels will not ser­i­ously dis­turb the well-be­ing of the pop­u­la­tion.

Section 3 Improvements

Art. 16 Obligation to make improvements  

1 In­stall­a­tions which do not com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of this Act or with the en­vir­on­ment­al pro­vi­sions of oth­er fed­er­al acts must be im­proved.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­acts pro­vi­sions on in­stall­a­tions, the ex­tent of the meas­ures to be taken, the time lim­its and pro­ced­ures.

3 Be­fore or­der­ing ma­jor im­prove­ment works, the au­thor­it­ies must re­quest the op­er­at­or of the in­stall­a­tion to sub­mit im­prove­ment pro­pos­als.

4 In ur­gent cases, the au­thor­it­ies must or­der im­prove­ments as a pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ure. In an emer­gency, they may or­der the shut­down of the in­stall­a­tion.

Art. 17 Concessions in individual cases  

1 The au­thor­it­ies must grant con­ces­sions if any im­prove­ment un­der Art­icle 16, para­graph 2 is dis­pro­por­tion­ate in a par­tic­u­lar case.

2 The am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues for air pol­lut­ants and the alarm val­ues for am­bi­ent noise levels must not, however, be ex­ceeded.29

29 Amended by No I 10 of the FA of 17 March 2017 on the Sta­bil­isa­tion Pro­gramme 2017–2019, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 5205; BBl 20164691).

Art. 18 Structural alteration or extension of installations requiring improvement  

1 In­stall­a­tions re­quir­ing im­prove­ment may be altered or ex­ten­ded only if they are im­proved at the same time.

2 Con­ces­sions gran­ted un­der Art­icle 17 may be qual­i­fied or re­voked.

Section 4 Additional Regulations for Protection against Noise and Vibrations

Art. 19 Alarm values  

In or­der to as­sess the ur­gency of im­prove­ments (Art. 16 para. 2, and Art. 20), the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set alarm val­ues for am­bi­ent noise levels that are high­er than the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues (Art. 15).

Art. 20 Soundproofing of existing buildings  

1 If am­bi­ent noise levels in ex­ist­ing build­ings near ex­ist­ing roads, air­ports, rail­way in­stall­a­tions or oth­er pub­lic or li­censed fixed in­stall­a­tions can­not be re­duced to be­low the alarm val­ues by meas­ures taken at their source, the own­ers of the build­ings con­cerned are re­quired to pro­tect areas used for long-stay ac­com­mod­a­tion by provid­ing sound­proof win­dows or by oth­er sim­il­ar build­ing meas­ures.

2 The own­ers of fixed in­stall­a­tions emit­ting noise bear the cost of the re­quired sound­proof­ing meas­ures un­less they can prove that when the plan­ning ap­plic­a­tion was made for the build­ing in ques­tion:

a.
the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues were already be­ing ex­ceeded; or
b.
the in­stall­a­tion plans had already been made pub­lic.
Art. 21 Soundproofing of new buildings  

1 Any per­son who wishes to con­struct a build­ing for use as long-stay ac­com­mod­a­tion must take ad­equate sound­proof­ing meas­ures to pro­tect it against in­tern­al and ex­tern­al noise and against vi­bra­tion.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the min­im­um pro­tec­tion re­quired by or­din­ance.

Art. 22 Building permits in areas affected by noise  

1 Build­ing per­mits for new build­ings in­ten­ded for use as long-stay ac­com­mod­a­tion are is­sued, sub­ject to para­graph 2, only if the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues are not ex­ceeded.

2 If the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues are ex­ceeded, build­ing per­mits for new build­ings in­ten­ded for use as long-stay ac­com­mod­a­tion are is­sued only if the rooms are suit­ably ar­ranged and any ne­ces­sary ad­di­tion­al sound­proof­ing meas­ures are taken.30

30Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 23 Planning values  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil lays down max­im­um plan­ning val­ues for the plan­ning of new build­ing zones and for pro­tec­tion against noise from new fixed in­stall­a­tions. These plan­ning val­ues are lower than the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues.

Art. 24 Standards for building zones  

1 New build­ing zones in­ten­ded for res­id­en­tial build­ings or for oth­er build­ings in­ten­ded as long-stay ac­com­mod­a­tion may be planned only in areas where am­bi­ent noise levels do not ex­ceed the plan­ning val­ues or in areas where these val­ues can be met by the ap­plic­a­tion of plan­ning, design or struc­tur­al meas­ures. The rezon­ing of build­ing zones does not con­sti­tute the defin­i­tion of new build­ing zones.31

2 If the plan­ning val­ues are ex­ceeded in an ex­ist­ing but as yet un­developed build­ing zone in­ten­ded for res­id­en­tial build­ings or oth­er build­ings in­ten­ded as long-stay ac­com­mod­a­tion, it must be real­loc­ated for a use that is less sens­it­ive to noise, un­less the plan­ning val­ues can be met in the great­er part of the area by the ap­plic­a­tion of plan­ning, design or struc­tur­al meas­ures.

31Sen­tence in­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 25 Construction of fixed installations  

1 New fixed in­stall­a­tions may be con­struc­ted only if the am­bi­ent noise levels emit­ted from these in­stall­a­tions alone do not ex­ceed the plan­ning val­ues in the sur­round­ing area; the plan­ning au­thor­ity may re­quest a fore­cast of noise levels.

2 Con­ces­sions may be gran­ted if the in­stall­a­tion is of over­rid­ing pub­lic be­ne­fit, in par­tic­u­lar in re­la­tion to spa­tial plan­ning, and com­pli­ance with the plan­ning val­ues would place a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bur­den on the pro­ject.32 However, sub­ject to para­graph 3, the am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues must not be ex­ceeded in this case.

3 If am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues can­not be met dur­ing the con­struc­tion of new roads, air­ports, rail­way in­stall­a­tions or oth­er pub­lic or li­censed fixed in­stall­a­tions by meas­ures taken at source, build­ings af­fected by the noise must be pro­tec­ted by sound­proof win­dows or oth­er sim­il­ar build­ing meas­ures and the own­er of the in­stall­a­tion must bear the costs.

32Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Chapter 2 Environmentally Hazardous Substances

Art. 26 Self-regulation  

1 The put­ting in­to cir­cu­la­tion of sub­stances for uses where, when handled cor­rectly, they, their de­riv­at­ives or waste may present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people is pro­hib­ited.33

2 To this end, the man­u­fac­turer or im­port­er is re­spons­ible for their own self-reg­u­la­tion.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues reg­u­la­tions on the nature, ex­tent and su­per­vi­sion of the self-reg­u­la­tion.34

33Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

34Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 27 Information for recipients 35  

1 Any per­son who puts sub­stances in­to cir­cu­la­tion must:

a.
in­form re­cip­i­ents about their en­vir­on­ment-re­lated prop­er­ties;
b.
provide re­cip­i­ents with in­struc­tions so that, when the sub­stances are handled cor­rectly, they do not present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues reg­u­la­tions on the nature, con­tent and ex­tent of the in­form­a­tion giv­en to re­cip­i­ents.36

35Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

36 Amended by An­nex No II 2 of the Chem­ic­als Act of 15 Dec. 2000, in force since 1 Aug. 2005 (AS 2004 4763, 2005 2293; BBl 2000 687).

Art. 28 Environmentally safe handling 37  

1 Sub­stances may only be handled in such a way that they, their de­riv­at­ives or their waste can­not present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people.

2 In­struc­tions from man­u­fac­tur­ers or im­port­ers must be com­plied with.

37Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 29 Federal Council regulations  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may en­act reg­u­la­tions on sub­stances which, due to their prop­er­ties, meth­od of use or the quant­it­ies used, may present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people.

2 These reg­u­la­tions re­late in par­tic­u­lar to:

a.
sub­stances that enter the en­vir­on­ment due to their in­ten­ded pur­pose, such as herb­i­cides and pesti­cides, in­clud­ing wood pre­ser­vat­ives and stock pre­ser­vat­ives, fer­til­isers, growth reg­u­lat­ors, road salts and pro­pel­lants;
b.
sub­stances or their de­riv­at­ives that can ac­cu­mu­late in the en­vir­on­ment, such as chlor­in­ated or­gan­ic com­pounds and heavy metals.

Chapter 3 Handling Organisms38

38Inserted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445). Amended by Annex No 4 of the Gene Technology Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 29a Principles  

1 Or­gan­isms must be handled in such a way that they, their meta­bol­ic products or wastes:

a.
can­not en­danger the en­vir­on­ment or people;
b.
do not harm bio­lo­gic­al di­versity or its sus­tain­able use.

2 The hand­ling of ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or­gan­isms is gov­erned by the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 200339.

3 Reg­u­la­tions in oth­er fed­er­al acts that serve to pro­tect people’s health against im­me­di­ate danger from or­gan­isms are re­served.

Art. 29b Activities in contained systems  

1 Any per­son who handles patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms that he may not re­lease for ex­per­i­ment­al pur­poses (Art. 29c) or put in­to cir­cu­la­tion for uses in the en­vir­on­ment (Art. 29d) must take all the con­tain­ment meas­ures re­quired, in par­tic­u­lar due to the risk that the or­gan­isms rep­res­ent to the en­vir­on­ment and to people.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall in­tro­duce a no­ti­fic­a­tion or au­thor­isa­tion ob­lig­a­tion for hand­ling of patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms.

3 For cer­tain patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms and activ­it­ies, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for a sim­pli­fic­a­tion of the no­ti­fic­a­tion or au­thor­isa­tion ob­lig­a­tion or for ex­emp­tions if, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, an in­fringe­ment of the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a is ex­cluded.

Art. 29c Experimental releases  

1 Any per­son who wishes for ex­per­i­ment­al pur­poses to re­lease patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms that may not be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion for uses in the en­vir­on­ment (Art. 29d) re­quires the au­thor­isa­tion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the re­quire­ments and the pro­ced­ure. It reg­u­lates in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the con­sulta­tion with spe­cial­ists;
b.
the fin­an­cial guar­an­tee for meas­ures by which any ef­fects caus­ing dam­age or nuis­ance may be de­tec­ted, aver­ted or elim­in­ated;
c.
the in­form­a­tion provided to the gen­er­al pub­lic.

3 For cer­tain patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms, it may provide for a sim­pli­fic­a­tion of the au­thor­isa­tion ob­lig­a­tion or for ex­emp­tions if, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, an in­fringe­ment of the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a is ex­cluded.

Art. 29d Putting into circulation  

1 Or­gan­isms may not be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion for uses in which the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a are in­fringed des­pite their be­ing handled in ac­cord­ance with the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions.

2 The man­u­fac­turer or im­port­er car­ries out its own self-reg­u­la­tion for this pur­pose. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­acts reg­u­la­tions on the nature, ex­tent and su­per­vi­sion of the self-reg­u­la­tion.

3 Patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms may be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion for uses in the en­vir­on­ment only with the au­thor­isa­tion of the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the re­quire­ments and the pro­ced­ure and reg­u­lates the in­form­a­tion provided to the gen­er­al pub­lic. For cer­tain patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms, it may provide for a sim­pli­fic­a­tion of the au­thor­isa­tion ob­lig­a­tion or for ex­emp­tions if, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, an in­fringe­ment of prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a is ex­cluded.

Art. 29dbis Objection procedure 40  

1 Ap­plic­a­tions for au­thor­isa­tions un­der Art­icles 29c para­graph 1, 29d para­graph 3 and 29f para­graph 2 let­ter b shall be pub­lished by the is­su­ing au­thor­ity in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette and made avail­able for pub­lic in­spec­tion for 30 days.

2 Any per­son who is a party in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 196841 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure may file an ob­jec­tion with the is­su­ing au­thor­ity dur­ing the pub­lic in­spec­tion peri­od. Per­sons who fail to file an ob­jec­tion are ex­cluded from any fur­ther pro­ceed­ings.

40In­ser­ted by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

41 SR 172.021

Art. 29e Information to recipients  

1 Any per­son who puts or­gan­isms in­to cir­cu­la­tion must:

a.
in­form re­cip­i­ents of prop­er­ties of the or­gan­isms that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to the ap­plic­a­tion of prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a;
b.
provide re­cip­i­ents with in­struc­tions so that hand­ling ac­cord­ing to the pro­vi­sions will not res­ult in any breach of the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a.

2 In­struc­tions from man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­port­ers must be com­plied with.

Art. 29f Further Federal Council regulations  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue fur­ther reg­u­la­tions on hand­ling of or­gan­isms, their meta­bol­ic products and wastes if, due to their prop­er­ties, the form of their use or the quant­ity used, the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a may be breached.

2 It may in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
reg­u­late the trans­port and the im­port, ex­port and trans­it of the or­gan­isms;
b.
de­clare hand­ling cer­tain or­gan­isms to be sub­ject to au­thor­isa­tion, or re­strict or pro­hib­it such hand­ling;
c.
stip­u­late meas­ures to com­bat cer­tain or­gan­isms or to pre­vent their oc­cur­rence;
d.
stip­u­late meas­ures to pre­vent any harm to bio­lo­gic­al di­versity and its sus­tain­able use;
e.
re­quire long-term stud­ies in­to the hand­ling of cer­tain or­gan­isms;
f.
re­quire pub­lic hear­ings in con­nec­tion with li­cens­ing pro­ced­ures.
Art. 29g Advisory committees  

The Swiss Ex­pert Com­mit­tee for Biosafety and the Fed­er­al Eth­ics Com­mit­tee on Non-hu­man Bi­o­tech­no­logy (Art. 22 and 23 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 200342) ad­vise the Fed­er­al Coun­cil on the is­sue of reg­u­la­tions and on the en­force­ment of pro­vi­sions on or­gan­isms.

Art. 29h43  

43 Re­pealed by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aar­hus Con­ven­tion), with ef­fect from 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

Chapter 4 Waste44

44Originally Chapter 3. Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 July 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Section 1 Avoidance and Disposal of Waste

Art. 30 Principles  

1 The pro­duc­tion of waste should be avoided wherever pos­sible.

2 Waste must be re­covered wherever pos­sible.

3 Waste must be dis­posed of in an en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible way and, in­so­far as this is pos­sible and reas­on­able, with­in Switzer­land.

Art. 30a Avoidance  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may:

a.
pro­hib­it pla­cing products in­ten­ded for once-only, short-term use on the mar­ket if the be­ne­fits of such use do not jus­ti­fy the harm to the en­vir­on­ment that they cause;
b.
pro­hib­it the use of sub­stances and or­gan­isms that con­sid­er­ably hamper dis­pos­al or the dis­pos­al of which may rep­res­ent a danger to the en­vir­on­ment;
c.
re­quire man­u­fac­tur­ers to avoid pro­duc­tion waste where there is no known en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible pro­cess for its dis­pos­al.
Art. 30b Collection  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­quire cer­tain types of waste that are suit­able for re­cov­ery or that need spe­cial treat­ment to be handed over sep­ar­ately for dis­pos­al.

2 It may re­quire those who put products in­to cir­cu­la­tion that are suit­able for re­cov­ery or need spe­cial treat­ment:

a.
to ac­cept the re­turn such products back after use;
b.
to charge a min­im­um de­pos­it and to re­fund this when the product is re­turned.

3 It may ar­range for the es­tab­lish­ment of a de­pos­it com­pens­a­tion fund and spe­cific­ally re­quire:

a.
those who put products in­to cir­cu­la­tion on which de­pos­its are paid to pay any sur­plus from the de­pos­it charges in­to the com­pens­a­tion fund;
b.
the sur­plus to be used to cov­er losses from re­fund­ing de­pos­its and to en­cour­age the re­turn of products on which de­pos­its are paid.
Art. 30c Treatment  

1 Waste in­ten­ded for de­pos­it in a land­fill must be treated so that it con­tains as little or­gan­ic bound car­bon as pos­sible and is as in­sol­uble as pos­sible in wa­ter.

2 Waste must not be burned oth­er than in in­cin­er­a­tion plants; the fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to the burn­ing of nat­ur­al forest, field and garden waste provided that this causes no ex­cess­ive am­bi­ent pol­lu­tion levels.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue fur­ther reg­u­la­tions on treat­ment for spe­cif­ic types of waste.

Art. 30d Recovery  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may:

a.
re­quire cer­tain types of waste to be re­covered if this is eco­nom­ic­ally feas­ible and harms the en­vir­on­ment less than oth­er forms of dis­pos­al and the man­u­fac­ture of new products;
b.
re­strict the use of sub­stances and products for cer­tain pur­poses if this will pro­mote the sale of equi­val­ent products made from re­covered waste without sig­ni­fic­ant loss of qual­ity or ad­di­tion­al cost.
Art. 30e Depositing in landfills  

1 Waste may be de­pos­ited only in land­fills.

2 Any per­son wish­ing to set up or op­er­ate a land­fill re­quires au­thor­isa­tion from the rel­ev­ant can­ton; this will be is­sued only if he fur­nishes proof that the site is ne­ces­sary. The types of waste that may be de­pos­ited on the site are spe­cified in the au­thor­isa­tion.

Art. 30f Handling of special waste  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­acts reg­u­la­tions on hand­ling of waste whose en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible dis­pos­al re­quires spe­cial meas­ures (spe­cial waste). It also reg­u­lates the im­port, ex­port and trans­it of such waste, pay­ing spe­cial at­ten­tion to the in­terests of re­gion­al cross-bor­der co­oper­a­tion as well as to the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact of dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies in Switzer­land and abroad. It may also en­act reg­u­la­tions for com­pan­ies which from with­in Switzer­land or­gan­ise or are in­volved in hand­ling of spe­cial waste.

2 It re­quires, in par­tic­u­lar, that spe­cial waste:

a.
must be marked as such for trans­fer with­in Switzer­land as well as for im­port, ex­port and trans­it;
b.
may be handed over in Switzer­land only to com­pan­ies with au­thor­isa­tion in terms of let­ter d;
c.
may be ex­por­ted only with au­thor­isa­tion from the Fed­er­al Of­fice;
d.
may be ac­cep­ted or im­por­ted only by com­pan­ies with au­thor­isa­tion from the can­ton.

3 These au­thor­isa­tions are gran­ted if en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible dis­pos­al is guar­an­teed.

4 ...45

45 Re­pealed by No I 2 of the FA of 21 Dec. 2007 on the Ab­ol­i­tion and Sim­pli­fic­a­tion of Li­cens­ing Pro­ced­ures, with ef­fect from 1 June 2008 (AS 2008 2265; BBl 2007 315).

Art. 30g Handling of other forms of waste  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may en­act reg­u­la­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 30f para­graphs 1 and 2 on hand­ling of oth­er forms of waste, if en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible dis­pos­al is not guar­an­teed.

2 ...46

46 Re­pealed by No I 2 of the FA of 21 Dec. 2007 on the Ab­ol­i­tion and Sim­pli­fic­a­tion of Li­cens­ing Pro­ced­ures, with ef­fect from 1 June 2008 (AS 2008 2265; BBl 2007 315).

Art. 30h Waste disposal facilities  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­acts tech­nic­al and or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions on waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies.

2 The au­thor­ity may set a time lim­it for the op­er­a­tion of waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies.

Section 2 Waste Management and the Disposal Obligation

Art. 31 Waste management  

1 The can­tons draw up a waste man­age­ment plan. In par­tic­u­lar, they es­tab­lish their re­quire­ments for waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies, avoid over-ca­pa­city, and de­cide on the sites for the waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies.

2 They no­ti­fy the Con­fed­er­a­tion of their waste man­age­ment plan.

Art. 31a Cooperation  

1 The can­tons co­oper­ate on waste man­age­ment and dis­pos­al. They avoid over-ca­pa­city in waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies.

2 If they can­not agree, they must sub­mit pro­posed solu­tions to the Con­fed­er­a­tion. If me­di­ation by the Con­fed­er­a­tion does not lead to agree­ment, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may or­der the can­tons:

a.
to de­term­ine the areas from which waste must be de­livered to the in­stall­a­tions for treat­ment, re­cov­ery or de­pos­it in land­fills (catch­ment areas);
b.
to de­term­ine sites for waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies;
c.
to make suit­able waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies avail­able to oth­er can­tons; where ne­ces­sary, it de­term­ines how costs are to be shared.
Art. 31b Disposal of municipal waste  

1 Mu­ni­cip­al waste, waste from the main­ten­ance of pub­lic roads and from pub­lic waste wa­ter treat­ment as well as waste gen­er­ated by per­sons un­known or un­able to pay is dis­posed of by the can­tons. For waste that must be re­covered by the hold­er or the re­turn of which must be ac­cep­ted by third parties in ac­cord­ance with spe­cial fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions, the duty of dis­pos­al is gov­erned by Art­icle 31c.

2 The can­tons de­term­ine the catch­ment areas for these forms of waste and en­sure that the waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies are op­er­ated eco­nom­ic­ally.47

3 The hold­er must hand over the waste for col­lec­tion by the ser­vices or­gan­ised by the can­tons or de­liv­er it to the col­lec­tion points de­term­ined by the can­tons.

47 Amended by No II of the FA of 20 June 1997, in force since 1 Nov. 1997 (AS 1997 2243; BBl 1996 IV 1217).

Art. 31c Disposal of other waste  

1 Any oth­er form of waste must be dis­posed of by its hold­er. He may in­struct third parties to dis­pose of it.

2 Where ne­ces­sary, the can­tons may fa­cil­it­ate dis­pos­al of this waste by ap­pro­pri­ate means. They may, in par­tic­u­lar, de­term­ine catch­ment areas.

3 If the dis­pos­al of this waste re­quires only a few catch­ment areas in the whole of Switzer­land, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­term­ine them.

Section 3 Financing of Disposal

Art. 32 Principles  

1 The hold­er of the waste bears the cost of its dis­pos­al, ex­cept for waste for which the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the bear­ing of the cost in some oth­er way.

2 If the hold­er can­not be iden­ti­fied or if he can­not ful­fil his ob­lig­a­tion un­der para­graph 1 be­cause he is un­able to pay, the can­tons bear the cost of dis­pos­al.

Art. 32a Financing for municipal waste 48  

1 The can­tons en­sure that the cost of dis­pos­ing of mu­ni­cip­al waste, in­so­far as it is their re­spons­ib­il­ity, is passed on to those re­spons­ible for pro­du­cing the waste through fees or oth­er charges. In or­gan­ising the charges, the fol­low­ing factors in par­tic­u­lar are taken in­to ac­count:

a.
the nature and the quant­ity of the waste handed over;
b.
the costs of the con­struc­tion, op­er­a­tion and main­ten­ance of the waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies;
c.
the de­pre­ci­ation re­quired to pre­serve the value of such in­stall­a­tions;
d.
the in­terest;
e.
the planned in­vest­ment re­quire­ments for main­ten­ance, im­prove­ments and re­place­ments, for ad­apt­a­tion to stat­utory re­quire­ments and op­er­a­tion­al op­tim­isa­tion.

2 If im­pos­ing cost-cov­er­ing charges on those re­spons­ible for the waste jeop­ard­ises the en­vir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able dis­pos­al of mu­ni­cip­al waste, dis­pos­al may be fin­anced dif­fer­ently to the ex­tent re­quired.

3 The op­er­at­ors of the waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies must form the re­quired fin­an­cial re­serves.

4 The prin­ciples for the cal­cu­la­tion of the charges must be made avail­able to the pub­lic.

48 In­ser­ted by No II of the FA of 20 June 1997, in force since 1 Nov. 1997 (AS 1997 2243; BBl 1996 IV 1217).

Art. 32abis Prepaid disposal fee 49  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­quire man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­port­ers who put products in­to cir­cu­la­tion which, after use by a large num­ber of hold­ers, be­come waste and have to be giv­en spe­cial treat­ment or are suit­able for re­cov­ery to pay a pre­paid dis­pos­al fee to a private or­gan­isa­tion ap­poin­ted and su­per­vised by the Con­fed­er­a­tion. This fee is used to fin­ance the dis­pos­al of the waste by private in­di­vidu­als or pub­lic cor­por­a­tions.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets the min­im­um and max­im­um amount of the fee on the basis of the cost of dis­pos­al. With­in this frame­work, the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions50 de­term­ines the level of the fee.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil lays down the meth­ods of col­lect­ing and us­ing the fee. It may, in par­tic­u­lar, re­quire that per­sons put­ting products in­to cir­cu­la­tion in­form cus­tom­ers in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner of the level of the fee.

49 Ori­gin­ally Art. 32a.

50 The des­ig­na­tion of the ad­min­is­trat­ive en­tity was amended ac­cord­ing to Art. 16 para. 3 of the Pub­lic­a­tion O of 17 Nov. 2004 (AS 2004 4937). This amend­ment has been made throughout the text.

Art. 32b Financial guarantee for landfills  

1 Any per­son who op­er­ates or wishes to op­er­ate a land­fill must guar­an­tee that the costs of clos­ure, after-care and re­medi­ation are covered by mak­ing re­serves, by tak­ing out in­sur­ance or in some oth­er way.

2 If the op­er­at­or of the land­fill is him­self the guar­ant­or, he must no­ti­fy the au­thor­ity an­nu­ally of the amount of the guar­an­tee.

3 If a third party acts as guar­ant­or, he must no­ti­fy the au­thor­ity of the ex­ist­ence, sus­pen­sion and ter­min­a­tion of the guar­an­tee. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide that the guar­an­tee must not be sus­pen­ded or ter­min­ated un­til 60 days after re­ceipt of the no­ti­fic­a­tion.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may en­act reg­u­la­tions on the guar­an­tee. In par­tic­u­lar, it may:

a.
de­term­ine its scope and dur­a­tion or leave this to the au­thor­ity to de­cide on a case-to-case basis;
b.
make pro­vi­sion for the land on which the land­fill is situ­ated to be­come the prop­erty of the can­ton when the site is closed, and en­act reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing any com­pens­a­tion.
Art. 32bbis Financing in the case of excavation material from polluted sites 51  

1 If the pro­pri­et­or of land re­moves ma­ter­i­al from a pol­luted site that does not re­quire to be dis­posed of in terms of re­medi­ation un­der Art­icle 32c, he may nor­mally claim re­im­burse­ment of two thirds of ad­di­tion­al costs of the in­vest­ig­a­tion and dis­pos­al of the ma­ter­i­al from the per­sons re­spons­ible for the pol­lu­tion and the pre­vi­ous pro­pri­et­ors of the site if:

a.
the per­sons re­spons­ible have not paid any com­pens­a­tion for the pol­lu­tion or the pre­vi­ous pro­pri­et­ors did not grant any re­duc­tion of the price on the sale of the land due to the pol­lu­tion;
b.
the re­mov­al of the ma­ter­i­al is re­quired for the con­struc­tion or al­ter­a­tion of build­ings; and
c.
the pro­pri­et­or ac­quired the prop­erty between 1 Ju­ly 1972 and 1 Ju­ly 1997.

2 The claim may be filed in the civil court at the loc­a­tion of the prop­erty. The rel­ev­ant civil pro­ced­ure code ap­plies.

3 Claims un­der para­graph 1 may be filed at the latest by 1 Novem­ber 2021.

51 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 16 Dec. 2005, in force since 1 Nov. 2006 (AS 2006 2677; BBl 200350085043).

Section 4 Remediation of Polluted Sites52

52 Amended by No I of the FA of 16 Dec. 2005, in force since 1 Nov. 2006 (AS 2006 2677; BBl 200350085043).

Art. 32c Obligation to remediate  

1 The can­tons en­sure that land­fills and oth­er sites pol­luted by waste (pol­luted sites) are re­medi­ated if such sites lead to harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances or if there is a con­crete risk that such ef­fects may arise. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may en­act reg­u­la­tions about the need for re­medi­ation and on the ob­ject­ives and ur­gency of re­medi­ation work.

2 The can­tons draw up a re­gister of pol­luted sites that is ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

3 They may carry out the in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation of pol­luted sites them­selves or in­struct third parties to do so if:

a.
this is re­quired to avert im­min­ent ef­fects;
b.
the per­son li­able is un­able to ar­range for the meas­ures to be car­ried out; or
c.
the per­son li­able fails to act des­pite be­ing re­minded and al­lowed time to do so.
Art. 32d Responsibility for costs  

1 The per­son re­spons­ible bears the costs of the meas­ures re­quired to in­vest­ig­ate, mon­it­or and re­medi­ate pol­luted sites.

2 If two or more per­sons are re­spons­ible, they bear the costs ac­cord­ing to their shares of the re­spons­ib­il­ity. The first to bear the costs is the per­son who caused the meas­ures to be needed through his con­duct. Any per­son who is re­spons­ible simply as the pro­pri­et­or of the site does not bear any costs if, by ex­er­cising the re­quired care, he could not have had any know­ledge of the pol­lu­tion.

3 The pub­lic au­thor­ity con­cerned bears the share of the costs of any per­son re­spons­ible who can­not be iden­ti­fied or is un­able to pay.

4 The au­thor­ity is­sues a rul­ing on the al­loc­a­tion of costs if any per­son re­spons­ible so re­quests or if the au­thor­ity is car­ry­ing out the meas­ures it­self.

5 If an in­vest­ig­a­tion of a site entered in the re­gister (Art. 32c para. 2) or for which an entry is planned re­veals that the site is not pol­luted, the pub­lic au­thor­ity con­cerned bears the costs of the in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ures re­quired.

Art. 32dbis Security for costs 53  

1 The au­thor­ity may re­quest the per­son re­spons­ible to provide ap­pro­pri­ate se­cur­ity to cov­er his prob­able share of the costs of in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation where a pol­luted site is ex­pec­ted to cause harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances.

2 The amount of the se­cur­ity is fixed in par­tic­u­lar on the basis of the ex­tent, nature and in­tens­ity of the pol­lu­tion. It is ad­jus­ted if jus­ti­fied on the basis of im­proved know­ledge of the situ­ation.

3 The sale or di­vi­sion of im­mov­able prop­erty on which a site is loc­ated that is entered in the re­gister of pol­luted sites re­quires the au­thor­ity's au­thor­isa­tion. Au­thor­isa­tion is gran­ted if:

a.
no harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances are ex­pec­ted from the site;
b.
se­cur­ity is provided for the costs of the ex­pec­ted meas­ures; or
c.
there is an over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terest in the sale or in the di­vi­sion.

4 The can­ton­al au­thor­ity may have the entry in the re­gister of pol­luted sites noted in the land re­gister entry for the prop­erty in ques­tion.

53 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Nov. 2013, para. 3 and 4 in force since 1 Ju­ly 2014 (AS 2013 3241; BBl 2012 93919403).

Art. 32e Charge to finance measures  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­quire that a charge be paid to the Con­fed­er­a­tion:

a.
by the op­er­at­or of a land­fill on the de­pos­it of waste in the land­fill;
b.
by any per­son who ex­ports waste for de­pos­it in a land­fill, on the ex­port of waste.

1bis In the case of land­fills in which only non-con­tam­in­ated waste is de­pos­ited, a charge may only be re­quired if it is ne­ces­sary in or­der to fund the re­cov­ery of such waste.54

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the rates of the charge, tak­ing spe­cial ac­count of the ex­pec­ted costs and the vari­ous types of land­fill. The max­im­um rates of the charge are as fol­lows:

a.
for waste de­pos­ited in Switzer­land:
1.
in the case of land­fills for non-con­tam­in­ated or lightly con­tam­in­ated waste: CHF 8/t,
2.
in the case of oth­er land­fills: CHF 25/t;
b.
for waste de­pos­ited abroad:
1.
in the case of un­der­ground land­fills; CHF 30/t,
2.
in the case of oth­er land­fills: as much as it would cost to de­pos­it the waste in a land­fill in Switzer­land.55

2bis The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ad­just the rate of the charge un­der para­graph 2 in line with Swiss Con­sumer Price In­dex.56

3 The Con­fed­er­a­tion uses the in­come from the charges ex­clus­ively to pay the costs of the fol­low­ing meas­ures:

a.
the pro­vi­sion of a re­gister of pol­luted sites, provided their pro­pri­et­ors have been giv­en the op­por­tun­ity by 1 Novem­ber 2007 to state their opin­ion on in­clu­sion in the re­gister;
b.
the in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation of pol­luted sites in which no waste has been de­pos­ited since 1 Feb­ru­ary 2001 if:57
1.
the per­son re­spons­ible can­not be iden­ti­fied or is un­able to pay, or
2.
a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the waste de­pos­ited on the site is mu­ni­cip­al waste;
c.58
the in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation of pol­luted sites at shoot­ing ranges that do not serve a pre­dom­in­antly com­mer­cial pur­pose if:
1.
on sites in ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones, no fur­ther waste has been de­pos­ited after 31 Decem­ber 2012,
2.59
on oth­er sites, no fur­ther waste has been de­pos­ited after 31 Decem­ber 2020 or only the waste from his­tor­ic­al shoot­ing events or field shoot­ing events that are held no more than once per year and that had already been held reg­u­larly at the same loc­a­tion be­fore 31 Decem­ber 2020;
cbis.60
ad­equate pro­tec­tion meas­ures, such as the use of butts, are taken at his­tor­ic­al shoot­ing events or field shoot­ing events that are held no more than once per year and that had already been held reg­u­larly at the same loc­a­tion be­fore 31 Decem­ber 2020;
d.
the in­vest­ig­a­tion of sites that are not found to be pol­luted (Art. 32d para. 5).

4 The pay­ments are made only if the meas­ures taken are en­vir­on­ment­ally com­pat­ible and cost-ef­fect­ive and cor­res­pond to the state of the art. They are paid to the can­tons in ac­cord­ance with the ex­pendit­ure in­curred and amount to:

a.
for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter a, a flat-rate pay­ment of 500 francs per site;
b.61
for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter b:
1.
40 per cent of the chargeable costs if no waste has been de­pos­ited at the site since 1 Feb­ru­ary 1996,
2.
30 per cent of the chargeable costs if waste was de­pos­ited at the site after 1 Feb­ru­ary 1996 but no later than 31 Janu­ary 2001.
c.62
for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter c:
1.
in the case of 300m shoot­ing ranges, a flat-rate pay­ment of 8000 francs per tar­get,
2.
in the case of oth­er shoot­ing ranges, 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;
d.63
for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter d, 40 per cent of the chargeable costs.64

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues reg­u­la­tions on the pro­ced­ure for col­lect­ing the charges and mak­ing the pay­ments as well as on the chargeable costs.

6 Pro­vi­sion may be made un­der can­ton­al law for can­ton­al charges to fin­ance the in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation of pol­luted sites.

54 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

55 Amended by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

56 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

57 Amended by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

58 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 March 2009 (Rights to Pay­ment for the Re­medi­ation of Shoot­ing Ranges), in force since 1 Oct. 2009 (AS 2009 4739; BBl 200892139223).

59 Amended by No I des BG of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 March 2020 (AS 2020513; BBl 2019 32573269).

60 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 March 2020 (AS 2020513; BBl 2019 32573269).

61 Amended by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

62 Amended by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

63 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015 865; BBl 2014 36733685).

64 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 March 2009 (Rights to Pay­ment for the Re­medi­ation of Shoot­ing Ranges), in force since 1 Oct. 2009 (AS 2009 4739; BBl 200892139223).

Chapter 5 Soil Pollution65

65Originally Chapter 4. Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 July 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 33 Measures against soil pollution  

1 For the long-term pre­ser­va­tion of soil fer­til­ity, meas­ures against chem­ic­al and bio­lo­gic­al soil pol­lu­tion must be laid down in the im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions to the Fed­er­al Act on the Pro­tec­tion of Wa­ter of 24 Janu­ary 199166, on dis­aster man­age­ment, on air pol­lu­tion con­trol, on en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances and or­gan­isms, on waste and on in­cent­ive taxes.67

2 The soil may be phys­ic­ally af­fected only to the ex­tent that its fer­til­ity is not dur­ably de­graded; this does not ap­ply to land used for build­ing. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions or re­com­mend­a­tions on meas­ures against phys­ic­al im­pacts such as erosion or com­pac­tion.

66 SR 814.20

67 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 34 Stricter measures against soil pollution  

1 If soil fer­til­ity in cer­tain areas is no longer guar­an­teed in the long term, the can­tons must, in agree­ment with the Con­fed­er­a­tion, in­tro­duce to the re­quired ex­tent stricter reg­u­la­tions on re­quire­ments for sewage in­filt­ra­tion, lim­it­a­tion of emis­sions for in­stall­a­tions, the use of sub­stances and or­gan­isms or phys­ic­al im­pacts on soil.

2 If the soil pol­lu­tion en­dangers hu­mans, an­im­als or plants, the can­tons must re­strict the use of the soil to the re­quired ex­tent.

3 If the soil is in­ten­ded for hor­ti­cul­tur­al, ag­ri­cul­tur­al or forestry use68 and it is im­possible to cul­tiv­ate it in a nor­mal way in that loc­a­tion without en­dan­ger­ing hu­mans, an­im­als or plants, the can­tons must en­act meas­ures to re­duce the soil pol­lu­tion at least to such an ex­tent that non-haz­ard­ous cul­tiv­a­tion is pos­sible.

68 Ex­pres­sion in Ger­man ver­sion in ac­cord­ance with No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435). This amend­ment has been made throughout the Act.

Art. 35 Guide values and soil remediation values  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set guide val­ues and soil re­medi­ation val­ues for as­sess­ing pol­lu­tion of the soil.

2 The guide val­ues in­dic­ate the pol­lu­tion level above which, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, soil fer­til­ity is no longer guar­an­teed in the long term.

3 The soil re­medi­ation val­ues in­dic­ate the pol­lu­tion level above which, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, cer­tain uses are not pos­sible without en­dan­ger­ing hu­mans, an­im­als or plants.

Chapter 6 Incentive Taxes69

69Inserted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 July 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 35a Volatile organic compounds  

1 Any per­son who im­ports volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds or any per­son who, as a man­u­fac­turer, puts such com­pounds in­to cir­cu­la­tion or uses them him­self must pay an in­cent­ive tax to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

2 The im­port of such com­pounds in paints and var­nishes is also sub­ject to the tax. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may make the im­port of such com­pounds in oth­er mix­tures or art­icles sub­ject to the tax if the quant­it­ies of these com­pounds are such as to pol­lute the en­vir­on­ment to a con­sid­er­able ex­tent or if these com­pounds ac­count for a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the cost of the product.

3 Volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds are ex­empt from the tax if:

a.
they are used as mo­tor or thermal fuels;
b.
they are in trans­it or be­ing ex­por­ted;
c.
they are used or treated in such a way that they are not re­leased in­to the en­vir­on­ment.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may grant tax re­lief to the ex­tent of the ad­di­tion­al costs in­curred for volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds which are so used or treated that their emis­sions are re­duced to sub­stan­tially be­low the leg­al re­quire­ments.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­empt volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds that are not en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous from the tax.

6 The tax rate amounts to a max­im­um of five francs per kilo­gram of volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds, plus a sur­charge to take ac­count of in­fla­tion from the date on which this pro­vi­sion comes in­to force.

7 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets the rate of the tax with ref­er­ence to air qual­ity ob­ject­ives, tak­ing spe­cial ac­count of:

a.
the pol­lu­tion that volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds cause to the en­vir­on­ment;
b.
the danger these com­pounds rep­res­ent to the en­vir­on­ment;
c.
the cost of meas­ures that can lim­it the ef­fects of these com­pounds;
d.
the price of these sub­stances and the price of al­tern­at­ive sub­stances which are less harm­ful to the en­vir­on­ment.

8 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall in­tro­duce the tax in stages and set the timetable and the rate for each stage in ad­vance.

9 The rev­en­ue from the tax, in­clud­ing in­terest and un­der de­duc­tion of im­ple­ment­a­tion costs, is shared equally among the pop­u­la­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the dis­tri­bu­tion pro­ced­ure. It may in­struct the can­tons, pub­lic cor­por­a­tions or private in­di­vidu­als to make the dis­tri­bu­tion.

Art. 35b Sulphur content of extra light heating oil  

1 Any per­son who im­ports, or in Switzer­land man­u­fac­tures or ex­tracts ex­tra light heat­ing oil with a sul­phur con­tent of more than 0.1 per cent (% by mass) must pay an in­cent­ive tax to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.70

2 Ex­tra light heat­ing oil with a sul­phur con­tent of more than 0.1 per­cent (% by mass) is ex­emp­ted from the tax if it is in trans­it or be­ing ex­por­ted.

3 The tax rate amounts to a max­im­um of twenty francs per tonne of ex­tra light heat­ing oil with a sul­phur con­tent of more than 0.1 per­cent (% by mass), plus a sur­charge to take ac­count of in­fla­tion from the date on which this pro­vi­sion comes in­to force.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets the rate of the tax with ref­er­ence to the air qual­ity ob­ject­ives, tak­ing spe­cial ac­count of:

a.
the pol­lu­tion sul­phur di­ox­ide causes to the en­vir­on­ment;
b.
the ex­tra cost of man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­tra light heat­ing oil with a sul­phur con­tent of 0.1 per­cent;
c.
the re­quire­ments of the na­tion­al eco­nom­ic sup­ply.

5 The rev­en­ue from the tax, in­clud­ing in­terest and un­der de­duc­tion of im­ple­ment­a­tion costs, is shared equally among the pop­u­la­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the dis­tri­bu­tion pro­ced­ure. It may in­struct the can­tons, pub­lic cor­por­a­tions or private in­di­vidu­als to make the dis­tri­bu­tion.

70Amended by An­nex 2 No 6 of the Min­er­al Oil Tax Act of 21 June 1996, in force since 1 Jan. 1997 (AS 1996 3371; BBl 1995 III 137).

Art. 35bbis Sulphur content of petrol and diesel 71  

1 Any per­son who im­ports, or in Switzer­land pro­duces or ex­tracts pet­rol or dies­el with a sul­phur con­tent of more than 0.001 per cent (% by mass) pays the Con­fed­er­a­tion an in­cent­ive tax.

2 Pet­rol and dies­el with a sul­phur con­tent of more than 0.001 per­cent (% by mass) are ex­emp­ted from the tax if they are in trans­it or be­ing ex­por­ted.

3 The tax amounts to a max­im­um of 5 centimes per litre plus a sur­charge to take ac­count of in­fla­tion from the date on which this pro­vi­sion comes in­to force.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may fix rates of tax that are dif­fer­ent for pet­rol and dies­el.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets the rate of the tax with ref­er­ence to the air qual­ity ob­ject­ives, tak­ing spe­cial ac­count of:

a.
the pol­lu­tion caused to the en­vir­on­ment by air con­tam­in­ants;
b.
the re­quire­ments of cli­mate pro­tec­tion;
c.
the ex­tra cost of man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing pet­rol and dies­el with a sul­phur con­tent of 0.001 per cent (% by mass);
d.
the re­quire­ments of the na­tion­al eco­nom­ic sup­ply.

6 The rev­en­ue from the tax, in­clud­ing in­terest and un­der de­duc­tion of im­ple­ment­a­tion costs, is shared equally among the pop­u­la­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the dis­tri­bu­tion pro­ced­ure. It may in­struct the can­tons, pub­lic cor­por­a­tions or private in­di­vidu­als to make the dis­tri­bu­tion.

71 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 20034215; BBl 20026464).

Art. 35c Tax liability and procedure  

1 The fol­low­ing per­sons are li­able:

a.
for the tax on volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds: those li­able to pay tax on im­ports un­der the Cus­toms Act of 1 Oc­to­ber 192572 (CA) as well as man­u­fac­tur­ers and pro­du­cers in Switzer­land;
b.73
for the tax on ex­tra light heat­ing oil and on pet­rol and dies­el: those li­able to pay tax un­der the Min­er­al Oil Tax Act of 21 June 199674 (MinOTA).75

2 If the con­di­tions for ex­emp­tion can­not be proved un­til after the tax has been col­lec­ted, the taxes are re­fun­ded. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late the re­quire­ments of proof and re­fuse a re­fund if this would cause dis­pro­por­tion­ate costs.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil stip­u­lates the pro­ced­ure for the col­lec­tion and re­fund of the tax on volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds. In the case of im­port or ex­port, the rel­ev­ant pro­ced­ur­al pro­vi­sions of the cus­toms le­gis­la­tion ap­ply.76

3bis In the case of the im­port or ex­port, or man­u­fac­ture or ex­trac­tion with­in Switzer­land of ex­tra light heat­ing oil, the rel­ev­ant pro­ced­ur­al pro­vi­sions of the MinOTA ap­ply to the col­lec­tion and re­fund of the tax.77

4 Any per­son who in Switzer­land pro­duces sub­stances or or­gan­isms that are sub­ject to the tax must de­clare them.

72[BS 6 465; AS 1956 587, 1959 1343Art. 11 No III, 1973 644, 1974 1857An­nex No 7, 1980 1793No I 1, 1992 1670No III, 1994 1634 No I 3, 1995 1816, 1996 3371An­nex 2 No 2, 1997 2465An­nex No 13, 2000 1300Art. 92 1891 No VI 6, 2002 248No I 1 Art. 41, 2004 4763An­nex No II 1, 2006 2197An­nex No 50. AS 2007 1411Art. 131 para. 1]. See now: Cus­toms Act 18 March 2005 (SR 631.0).

73 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 20034215; BBl 20026464).

74 SR 641.61

75Amended by An­nex 2 No 6 of the Min­er­al Oil Tax Act of 21 June 1996, in force since 1 Jan. 1997 (AS 1996 3371; BBl 1995 III 137).

76Amended by An­nex 2 No 6 of the Min­er­al Oil Tax Act of 21 June 1996, in force since 1 Jan. 1997 (AS 1996 3371; BBl 1995 III 137).

77In­ser­ted by An­nex 2 No 6 of the Min­er­al Oil Tax Act of 21 June 1996 (AS 1996 3371; BBl 1995 III 137). Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 20034215; BBl 20026464).

Chapter 7 Putting Raw Materials and Products into Circulation 7879

78 Inserted by the Annex to the FA of 21 March 2014, in force since 1 August 2016 (AS 2016 2661; BBl 2013 57375783).

79 Amended by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021 614; BBl 2019 1251).

Section 1 Biogenic Motor and Thermal Fuels 8080

80 Inserted by No II of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Extension of the Time Limit for Tax Relief for Natural Gas, Liquid Gas and Biogenic Fuels and on the Amendment of the Federal Act on the Reduction of CO2 Emissions, in force from 1 July 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, extended to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

Art. 35d81  

1 If a sub­stan­tial volume of bio­gen­ic mo­tor and thermal fuels or mix­tures that con­tain bio­gen­ic mo­tor and thermal fuels that do not meet the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 12b para­graphs 1 and 3 of the Min­er­al Oil Tax Act of 21 June 199682 are put in­to cir­cu­la­tion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide that cer­tain bio­gen­ic mo­tor and thermal fuels that it des­ig­nates may only be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion if they meet spe­cif­ic eco­lo­gic­al or so­cial re­quire­ments.

2 Eth­an­ol used for thermal pur­poses is ex­emp­ted from the au­thor­isa­tion re­quire­ment.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the fol­low­ing, tak­ing ac­count of the pro­vi­sions of the le­gis­la­tion on the min­er­al oil tax:

a.
the eco­lo­gic­al and so­cial re­quire­ments that bio­gen­ic mo­tor and thermal fuels re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion must meet;
b.
the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure.

81 Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

82 SR 641.61

Section 2 Timber and Wood Products and other Raw Materials and Products8383

83 Inserted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021 614; BBl 2019 1251).

Art. 35e Requirements for putting into circulation  

1 The put­ting in­to cir­cu­la­tion for the first time of tim­ber and wood products that have not been har­ves­ted or traded in ac­cord­ance with the reg­u­la­tions of the coun­try of ori­gin is pro­hib­ited.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall lay down the re­quire­ments for put­ting tim­ber and wood products in­to cir­cu­la­tion in line with the rules of the European Uni­on.

3 In line with in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards, it may im­pose re­quire­ments for put­ting oth­er raw ma­ter­i­als and products in­to cir­cu­la­tion or pro­hib­it their be­ing put in­to cir­cu­la­tion if their cul­tiv­a­tion, ex­trac­tion or pro­duc­tion sig­ni­fic­antly pol­lutes the en­vir­on­ment or sig­ni­fic­antly jeop­ard­ises the sus­tain­able use of nat­ur­al re­sources.

Art. 35f Duty of care  

1 Any per­son who puts tim­ber or wood products or oth­er raw ma­ter­i­als and products spe­cified by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil pur­su­ant to Art­icle 35epara­graph 3 in­to cir­cu­la­tion for the first time must ex­er­cise the re­quired care to en­sure that the goods meet the re­quire­ments un­der Art­icle 35e.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates:

a.
the nature, con­tent and scope of the duty of care;
b.
the mon­it­or­ing of com­pli­ance with the duty of care;
c.
the re­cog­ni­tion of or­gan­isa­tions that sup­port and veri­fy com­pli­ance with the duty of care, and the mon­it­or­ing of their activ­it­ies.

3 It may im­pose re­port­ing ob­lig­a­tions on those who put tim­ber or wood products in cir­cu­la­tion for the first time.

4 It may provide for the re­turn, seizure or for­feit­ure of tim­ber or wood products and oth­er raw ma­ter­i­als and products that it spe­cifies pur­su­ant to Art­icle 35e para­graph 3 in cases of in­fringe­ment of para­graphs 1 and 2 and of Art­icle 35e. It may also provide for a ban on the mar­ket­ing of tim­ber and wood products in par­tic­u­larly ser­i­ous cases.

Art. 35g Traceability and declaration  

1 Traders must doc­u­ment the sup­pli­er from which they have ob­tained tim­ber or wood products and the pur­chaser to which they have sup­plied them;the Federal Council may impose a documentation requirement fortim­ber or wood products and oth­er raw ma­ter­i­als and products that it spe­cifies pur­su­ant to Art­icle 35e para­graph 3.

2 Any per­son who sup­plies tim­ber or wood products to con­sumers must de­clare the type of tim­ber and its ori­gin. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the tim­ber and wood products to which this de­clar­a­tion ob­lig­a­tion ap­plies.

Art. 35h Data processing  

1 The au­thor­it­ies or third parties en­trus­ted with the im­ple­ment­a­tion of this Act or with the con­trol or su­per­vi­sion of its im­ple­ment­a­tion may pro­cess per­son­al data, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data re­lat­ing to ad­min­is­trat­ive or crim­in­al sanc­tions, in so far as is ne­ces­sary to im­ple­ment this sec­tion.

2 The do­mest­ic au­thor­it­ies may dis­close per­son­al data, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data re­lat­ing to ad­min­is­trat­ive or crim­in­al sanc­tions, to for­eign au­thor­it­ies and in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions for the pur­pose of im­ple­ment­ing the pro­vi­sions of the European Uni­on con­cern­ing the put­ting in­to cir­cu­la­tion of tim­ber and wood products.

Title 3 Enforcement, Promotional Measures and Procedure

Chapter 1 Enforcement

Section 1 Enforcement by the Cantons

Art. 36 Enforcement powers of the cantons  

Sub­ject to the re­ser­va­tion of Art­icle 41, the en­force­ment of this Act is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the can­tons.

Art. 37 Cantonal implementing provisions 84  

Can­ton­al im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions on dis­aster pre­ven­tion (Art. 10), the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment (Art. 10a), im­prove­ment (Art. 16–18), sound­proof­ing of build­ings (Art. 20 and 21) and waste (Art. 30–32 and 32abis–32e) re­quire the ap­prov­al of the Con­fed­er­a­tion to be val­id.

84Amended by No I of the FA of 20 Decem­ber 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 20072701, 20122389; BBl 200553515391).

Section 2 Enforcement by the Confederation

Art. 38 Supervision and coordination  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion su­per­vises the en­force­ment of this Act.

2 It co­ordin­ates the en­force­ment meas­ures of the can­tons and of its own in­sti­tu­tions and es­tab­lish­ments.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cides on the meth­ods of test­ing, meas­ure­ment and cal­cu­la­tion to be ap­plied.

Art. 39 Implementing provisions and international law agreements  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­acts the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions.

1bis In do­ing so, it may de­clare in­ter­na­tion­ally har­mon­ised tech­nic­al reg­u­la­tions and stand­ards to be ap­plic­able and:

a.
au­thor­ise the Fed­er­al Of­fice re­spons­ible to de­clare sub­or­din­ate amend­ments to these reg­u­la­tions and stand­ards to be ap­plic­able;
b.
provide that the reg­u­la­tions and stand­ards de­clared to be ap­plic­able are pub­lished in a spe­cif­ic man­ner and that trans­la­tion in­to the of­fi­cial lan­guages is dis­pensed with.85

2 It may con­clude in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on:86

a.
tech­nic­al reg­u­la­tions;
abis.87 en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances (Art. 26–29);
b.88
waste avoid­ance and dis­pos­al;
c.
co­oper­a­tion in fron­ti­er zones by the es­tab­lish­ment of in­ter­na­tion­al com­mis­sions with ad­vis­ory status;
d.
data col­lec­tions and sur­veys;
e.
re­search and train­ing.

3 ...89

85 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 2 of the Chem­ic­als Act of 15 Dec. 2000, in force since 1 Jan. 2005 (AS 2004 4763, 2005 2293; BBl 2000 687).

86 Amended by An­nex No II 2 of the Chem­ic­als Act of 15 Dec. 2000, in force since 1 Aug. 2005 (AS 2004 4763, 2005 2293; BBl 2000 687).

87 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 2 of the Chem­ic­als Act of 15 Dec. 2000, in force since 1 Aug. 2005 (AS 2004 4763, 2005 2293; BBl 2000 687).

88Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

89 Re­pealed by Art. 12 No 2 of the Con­sulta­tion Pro­ced­ure Act of 18 March 2005, with ef­fect from 1 Sept. 2005 (AS 2005 4099; BBl 2004 533).

Art. 40 Placing series-produced installations on the market 90  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may make pla­cing series-pro­duced in­stall­a­tions on the mar­ket de­pend­ent on con­form­ity as­sess­ments, la­belling, re­gis­tra­tion or li­cens­ing ac­cord­ing to the en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion they pro­duce.

2 It may re­cog­nise for­eign tests, con­form­ity as­sess­ments, la­belling, re­gis­tra­tions and au­thor­isa­tions.

90Amended by An­nex No 2 of the FA of 6 Oct. 1995 on Tech­nic­al Bar­ri­ers to Trade, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1996 (AS 1996 1725; BBl 1995 II 521).

Art. 41 Enforcement powers of the Confederation  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion en­forces Art­icle 12 para­graph 1 let­ter e (Reg­u­la­tions on thermal and mo­tor fuels), 26 (self-reg­u­la­tion), 27 (In­form­a­tion for re­cip­i­ents), 29 (Reg­u­la­tions on sub­stances), 29a–29h(En­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous or­gan­isms), 30b para­graph 3 (De­pos­it com­pens­a­tion fund), 30fand 30g(Im­port and ex­port of waste), 31a para­graph 2 and 31c para­graph 3 (Fed­er­al waste dis­pos­al meas­ures), 32abis(Pre-paid dis­pos­al fee), 32epara­graphs 1–4 (Charge to fin­ance re­medi­ation), 35a–35c (In­cent­ive taxes), 35d (Bio­gen­ic mo­tor and thermal fuels), 35e–35h (Tim­ber or wood products or oth­er raw ma­ter­i­als and products), 39 (Im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions and in­ter­na­tion­al law agree­ments), 40 (Pla­cing series-pro­duced in­stall­a­tions on the mar­ket) and 46 para­graph 3 (In­form­a­tion on sub­stances and or­gan­isms); it may re­quire the can­tons to carry out cer­tain du­ties.91

2 Any fed­er­al au­thor­ity that en­forces an­oth­er Fed­er­al Act or an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment is, in ful­filling this duty, also re­spons­ible for the en­force­ment of the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act. It must con­sult the can­tons con­cerned be­fore mak­ing its de­cision. The Fed­er­al Of­fice and the oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies con­cerned co­oper­ate in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 62a and 62b of the Gov­ern­ment and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Or­gan­isa­tion Act of 21 March 199792 in re­la­tion to en­force­ment.93

3 If the pro­ced­ure un­der para­graph 2 is not suit­able for cer­tain du­ties, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates en­force­ment by the fed­er­al agen­cies con­cerned.94

4 The fed­er­al en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies must take ac­count of can­ton­al en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures.95

91 Amended by No II of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023 (AS 2020 1269; BBl 2019 56795813).

92 SR 172.010

93 Amended by No I 14 of the FA of 18 June 1999 on the Co­ordin­a­tion and Sim­pli­fic­a­tion of De­cision-mak­ing Pro­ced­ures, in force since 1 Jan. 2000 (AS 1999 3071; BBl 1998 2591).

94 Amended by No I 14 of the FA of 18 June 1999 on the Co­ordin­a­tion and Sim­pli­fic­a­tion of De­cision-mak­ing Pro­ced­ures, in force since 1 Jan. 2000 (AS 1999 3071; BBl 1998 2591).

95 Ori­gin­ally para. 3.

Section 2a Cooperation with the Private Sector96

96Inserted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 July 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 41a  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion and, with­in the scope of their re­spons­ib­il­it­ies, the can­tons shall co­oper­ate with private sec­tor or­gan­isa­tions in en­for­cing this Act.

2 They may pro­mote sec­tor­al agree­ments by set­ting quant­it­at­ive tar­gets and dead­lines for meet­ing them.

3 Be­fore en­act­ing im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions, they must ex­am­ine vol­un­tary private sec­tor meas­ures. Wherever pos­sible and ne­ces­sary, they shall in­cor­por­ate sec­tor­al agree­ments in­to the im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions in whole or in part.

Section 3 Special Enforcement Provisions

Art. 42 Environmental protection agencies  

1 The can­tons shall set up a spe­cial­ist agency to con­sider en­vir­on­ment­al ques­tions or des­ig­nate ex­ist­ing pub­lic agen­cies to carry out this task.

2 The Fed­er­al Of­fice is the spe­cial­ist agency for the Con­fed­er­a­tion.97

97Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 43 Delegation of enforcement duties 98  

The en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies may en­trust pub­lic cor­por­a­tions or private en­tit­ies with en­force­ment du­ties, and in par­tic­u­lar with con­trol and mon­it­or­ing.

98Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 43a Eco-labelling and environmental management 99  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on the in­tro­duc­tion of:

a.
a vol­un­tary sys­tem for an en­vir­on­ment­al la­bel («eco-la­bel»);
b.
a vol­un­tary sys­tem for the eval­u­ation and im­prove­ment of en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion in es­tab­lish­ments (en­vir­on­ment­al man­age­ment and audit­ing).

2 In so do­ing, it must take ac­count of in­ter­na­tion­al law and in­ter­na­tion­ally re­cog­nised tech­nic­al stand­ards.

99In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 44 Environmental pollution surveys  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons con­duct sur­veys on en­vir­on­ment­al pol­lu­tion and check the ef­fect­ive­ness of meas­ures taken in terms of this Act.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil co­ordin­ates the fed­er­al and can­ton­al sur­veys and data col­lec­tions.

3 It de­cides what in­form­a­tion on sub­stances and or­gan­isms col­lec­ted in terms of the le­gis­la­tion on gene tech­no­logy, food­stuffs, thera­peut­ic products, chem­ic­als, ag­ri­cul­ture, epi­dem­ics and epi­zo­ot­ic dis­eases is made avail­able to the Fed­er­al Of­fice.100

100Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 44a Action plans for air pollution 101  

1 If sev­er­al sources of air pol­lu­tion cause or are ex­pec­ted to cause harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances, the au­thor­ity con­cerned must draw up a plan of the meas­ures that will con­trib­ute to re­du­cing or elim­in­at­ing these ef­fects with­in a set time (ac­tion plan).

2 Ac­tion plans are bind­ing for the au­thor­it­ies that are en­trus­ted with en­force­ment by the can­tons. They must make a dis­tinc­tion between meas­ures which may be ordered im­me­di­ately and meas­ures for which the leg­al frame­work still has to be en­acted.

3 If a plan provides for meas­ures which come with­in the area of re­spons­ib­il­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the can­tons must make the ne­ces­sary ap­plic­a­tions to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

101In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 45 Regular inspections 102  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­quire the reg­u­lar in­spec­tion of in­stall­a­tions such as oil-fired fur­naces, waste dis­pos­al fa­cil­it­ies and con­struc­tion ma­chinery.

102Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 46 Obligation to provide information  

1 Every­one is ob­liged to provide the au­thor­it­ies with the in­form­a­tion re­quired to en­force this Act and, if ne­ces­sary, to con­duct or ac­qui­esce in the con­duct of en­quir­ies.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil or the can­tons may or­der that re­gisters be kept on air pol­lu­tion, noise and vi­bra­tions, waste and its dis­pos­al, and the types, amounts and as­sess­ment of sub­stances and or­gan­isms, and that such re­gisters be stored and made avail­able to the au­thor­it­ies on re­quest.103

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may or­der that in­form­a­tion be provided on sub­stances and or­gan­isms that may present a threat to the en­vir­on­ment or which are be­ing put in­to cir­cu­la­tion for the first time.104

103Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

104Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 47 Information and professional secrecy 105  

1 and2 ...106

3 All those re­spons­ible for en­for­cing this Act as well as ex­perts and mem­bers of com­mis­sions and tech­nic­al com­mit­tees are bound by of­fi­cial secrecy.

4 Con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion ob­tained in the im­ple­ment­a­tion of this Act may be dis­closed to for­eign au­thor­it­ies and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions only if this is provided for in an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment, de­cisions of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions, or a fed­er­al act.107 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates re­spons­ib­il­it­ies and the pro­ced­ure.108

105 Amended by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aar­hus Con­ven­tion), in force since 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

106 Re­pealed by Art. 2 No I of the FD of 27 Sept. 2013 (Aar­hus Con­ven­tion), with ef­fect from 1 June 2014 (AS 2014 1021; BBl 2012 4323).

107 Amended by An­nex No II 2 of the Chem­ic­als Act of 15 Dec. 2000, in force since 1 Aug. 2005 (AS 2004 4763, 2005 2293; BBl 2000 687).

108In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 48 Fees  

1 A fee is charged for li­cences, in­spec­tions and spe­cial ser­vices un­der this Act.

2 The rates are set by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil at fed­er­al level and by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity un­der can­ton­al law at can­ton­al level.

Chapter 2 Promotional Measures

Art. 49 Training and research  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may pro­mote the ba­sic and con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing of per­son­nel en­trus­ted with du­ties in terms of this Act.109

2 It may com­mis­sion or sup­port re­search stud­ies and tech­no­logy as­sess­ments.110

3 It may pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment of in­stall­a­tions and pro­cesses that can re­duce pol­lu­tion in the pub­lic in­terest. Fin­an­cial aid may not nor­mally ex­ceed 50 per cent of the costs. In the event of the com­mer­cial ex­ploit­a­tion of the de­vel­op­ment res­ults, it must be re­fun­ded in pro­por­tion to the earn­ings made. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil makes a gen­er­al as­sess­ment of the ef­fect of the pro­mo­tion and re­ports to the Fed­er­al As­sembly on the res­ults at five-yearly in­ter­vals.111

109Amended by An­nex No 18 of the FA of 5 Oct. 1990 on Fin­an­cial Aid and Sub­sidies (Sub­sidies Act), in force since 1 April 1991 (AS 1991 857; BBl 1997 I 369). The amend­ment in ac­cord­ance with the FA of 20 June 2014 on Con­tinu­ing Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing, in force since 1 Jan. 2017, relates to the French and Itali­an texts only (AS 2016 689; BBl 20133729).

110 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

111In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 50 Contributions towards environmental protection measures along roads 112  

1 As part of the use of the net rev­en­ue from the min­er­al oil tax and the na­tion­al high­ways charge, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall con­trib­ute to the cost:

a.
of en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures along na­tion­al roads and main roads to be up­graded with fed­er­al aid ac­cord­ing to the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1985113 on the Ap­plic­a­tion of the Ear­marked Min­er­al Oil Tax (MinOA); in the case of main roads, these con­tri­bu­tions are part of the glob­al con­tri­bu­tions un­der the MinOA;
b.
of noise abate­ment and sound­proof­ing meas­ures as part of the up­grad­ing of the re­mainder of the road net­work on the basis of pro­gramme agree­ments with the can­tons; the level of the con­tri­bu­tions is based on the ef­fect­ive­ness of the meas­ures.

2 The can­tons shall re­port to the Con­fed­er­a­tion on the use of the con­tri­bu­tions to­wards en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures along main roads that are to be up­graded with fed­er­al aid, and along oth­er roads.

112 Amended by No II 22 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2006 on the New Sys­tem of Fisc­al Equal­isa­tion and Di­vi­sion of Tasks between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons (NFE), in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS 2007 5779; BBl 2005 6029).

113 SR 725.116.2

Art. 51 Control and monitoring installations  

The Con­fed­er­a­tion may con­trib­ute to­wards the cost of build­ing and equip­ping the meas­ur­ing, con­trol and mon­it­or­ing in­stall­a­tions re­quired to en­force this Act, provided these in­stall­a­tions are used by two or more can­tons.

Art. 52114  

114In­ser­ted by No 18 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oct. 1990 (AS 1991 857; BBl 1987 I 369). Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 19 March 2021 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Sim­pli­fic­a­tions and Fed­er­al Budget Re­lief, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021 654; BBl 2020 6985).

Art. 53 International cooperation on the protection of the environment 115  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may make con­tri­bu­tions:

a.
to in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions or pro­grammes in the field of in­ter­na­tion­al en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion;
b.
for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on the en­vir­on­ment;
c.
for the fin­an­cing of the sec­ret­ari­ats for in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on the en­vir­on­ment that are per­man­ently based in Switzer­land;
d.
to funds that sup­port de­vel­op­ing and trans­ition coun­tries in the im­ple­ment­a­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on the en­vir­on­ment.

2 Con­tri­bu­tions un­der para­graph 1 let­ter d are au­thor­ised as frame­work cred­its for two or more years in each case.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil mon­it­ors the ef­fect­ive use of the funds au­thor­ised un­der this Act and re­ports to the Fed­er­al As­sembly there­on.

115Re­pealed by An­nex No 18 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oct. 1990 (AS 1991 857; BBl 1997 I 369). Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 20034062; BBl 2002 7911).

Chapter 3 Procedures

Section 1 Appeals 116

116 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 July 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 54 ... 117118  

Ap­peal pro­ceed­ings are gov­erned by the gen­er­al pro­vi­sions on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fed­er­al justice.

117 Amended by An­nex No 91 of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court Act of 17 June 2005, in force since 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 21971069; BBl 2004 4202).

118 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, with ef­fect from 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Section 2 Organisations’ Right of Appeal against Rulings on Installations 119

119 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 July 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 55 Organisations with the right to appeal 120  

1 En­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion or­gan­isa­tions have the right of ap­peal against rul­ings of the can­ton­al or fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies on the plan­ning, con­struc­tion or modi­fic­a­tion of in­stall­a­tions for which an en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact as­sess­ment in terms of Art­icle 10a is re­quired, sub­ject to the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments:

a.
the or­gan­isa­tion is act­ive in Switzer­land on a na­tion­al basis;
b.
it pur­sues non-profit mak­ing ob­jects; any com­mer­cial activ­it­ies must serve to achieve the non-profit mak­ing ob­jects.

2 The right of ap­peal is avail­able to or­gan­isa­tions only for com­plaints in leg­al fields that have formed their ob­jects in terms of their art­icles for a min­im­um of ten years.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil des­ig­nates the or­gan­isa­tions that have the right to ap­peal.

4 The su­preme ex­ec­ut­ive body of the or­gan­isa­tion is re­spons­ible for fil­ing the ap­peal.

5 The or­gan­isa­tions may au­thor­ise their leg­ally in­de­pend­ent can­ton­al and supra-can­ton­al sub­si­di­ary or­gan­isa­tions to file ob­jec­tions and on a case-by-case basis to file ap­peals that re­late to their loc­al field of activ­ity.

120 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391). The pro­vi­sion on eco­nom­ic activ­ity in para. 1 let. b comes in­to force on 1 Ju­ly 2010 (see No III para. 3 of the said amend­ment).

Art. 55a Notification of the ruling 121  

1 The au­thor­ity no­ti­fies the or­gan­isa­tions of its rul­ing un­der Art­icle 55 para­graph 1 by writ­ten no­tice or by pub­lic­a­tion in the Of­fi­cial Fed­er­al Gaz­ette or in the can­ton­al or­gan of pub­lic­a­tion.

2 If fed­er­al or can­ton­al law provides for an ob­jec­tion pro­ced­ure, ap­plic­a­tions must also be pub­lished in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.

121 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 55b Loss of the right to appeal 122  

1 Or­gan­isa­tions that have not sought leg­al re­course may only par­ti­cip­ate in sub­sequent pro­ceed­ings as a party if they are pre­ju­diced by a change in the rul­ing. For com­puls­ory pur­chases, the Fed­er­al Act of 20 June 1930123 on Com­puls­ory Pur­chase ap­plies.

2 If an or­gan­isa­tion has not par­ti­cip­ated in ob­jec­tion pro­ceed­ings un­der fed­er­al or can­ton­al law, it may no longer file an ap­peal.

3 If an or­gan­isa­tion has not filed a per­mit­ted com­plaint against a land use plan that has the char­ac­ter of a rul­ing or if the com­plaint has been re­jec­ted with full leg­al ef­fect, the or­gan­isa­tion may no longer file the same com­plaints in sub­sequent pro­ceed­ings.

4 Para­graphs 2 and 3 also ap­ply to ob­jec­tions and ap­peals un­der can­ton­al law against land use plans.

122 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

123 SR 711

Art. 55c Agreements between applicants and organisations 124  

1 If an ap­plic­ant and or­gan­isa­tion enter in­to an agree­ment on ob­lig­a­tions that re­late to pub­lic law mat­ters, these agree­ments are deemed ex­clus­ively to be joint ap­plic­a­tions to the au­thor­ity. The au­thor­ity takes ac­count of the res­ult in its rul­ing or in its de­cision. It does not take ac­count of the res­ult if it is de­fect­ive in terms of Art­icle 49 of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968125 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure.

2 Agree­ments between ap­plic­ants and or­gan­isa­tions on fin­an­cial or oth­er be­ne­fits are not per­mit­ted if they are in­ten­ded for:

a.
the en­force­ment of pub­lic law ob­lig­a­tions, and in par­tic­u­lar re­quire­ments im­posed by au­thor­it­ies;
b.
meas­ures that are not provided for un­der pub­lic law or which have no con­nec­tion with the pro­ject;
c.
com­pens­a­tion for a waiver of leg­al ac­tion or for any oth­er pro­ced­ur­al con­duct.

3 The ap­peal au­thor­ity does not con­sider an ap­peal if it con­sti­tutes an ab­use of the law or if the or­gan­isa­tion has de­man­ded un­law­ful be­ne­fits in terms of para­graph 2.

124 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

125 SR 172.021

Art. 55d Early start to construction work 126  

Con­struc­tion work may be­gin be­fore con­clu­sion of the pro­ceed­ings provided the out­come of the pro­ceed­ings can­not have any in­flu­ence on the work.

126 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 55e Procedural costs 127  

If the or­gan­isa­tion loses the pro­ceed­ings, it is li­able for the costs of con­duct­ing the ap­peal be­fore the fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies.

127 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Section 3 Organisations’ Right of Appeal against the Authorisation of Organisms128

128 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 July 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 55f  

1 En­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion or­gan­isa­tions have a right of ap­peal against any au­thor­isa­tion for put­ting patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms in cir­cu­la­tion for law­ful use in the en­vir­on­ment, sub­ject to the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments:

a.
The or­gan­isa­tion is act­ive in Switzer­land on a na­tion­al basis.
b.
It was es­tab­lished at least ten years pri­or to the fil­ing of the ap­peal.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil des­ig­nates the or­gan­isa­tions that have the right to ap­peal.

3 The Art­icles 55a and 55b para­graphs 1 and 2 ap­ply.

Section 4 Public Authority Appeals and Appeals by Communal Authorities, Compulsory Purchase, Costs of Safety and Remedial Measures 129

129 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 Dec. 2006, in force since 1 July 2007 (AS 2007 2701; BBl 2005 53515391).

Art. 56 Public authority appeal  

1 The Fed­er­al Of­fice has a right of ap­peal un­der fed­er­al and can­ton­al law against rul­ings by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies made on the basis of this Act and its im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions.130

2 The can­tons also have this right in cases where ef­fects from neigh­bour­ing can­tons on their ter­rit­ory are a mat­ter of con­ten­tion.

3 ...131

130 Amended by No I 14 of the FA of 18 June 1999 on the Co­ordin­a­tion and Sim­pli­fic­a­tion of De­cision-mak­ing Pro­ced­ures, in force since 1 Jan. 2000 (AS 1999 3071; BBl 1998 2591).

131 Re­pealed by An­nex No 91 of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court Act of 17 June 2005, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2007 (AS 2006 21971069; BBl 2004 4202).

Art. 57 Appeal by communal authorities  

Com­munes have the right of ap­peal un­der fed­er­al and can­ton­al law against rul­ings by the can­ton­al and fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies made on the basis of this Act if they are af­fected by such rul­ings and have a le­git­im­ate in­terest in hav­ing them re­versed or amended.

Art. 58 Compulsory purchase  

1 Where en­force­ment of this law so re­quires, the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons have a right of com­puls­ory pur­chase or may as­sign this right to third parties.132

2 The can­tons may de­clare the Fed­er­al Act of 20 June 1930133 on Com­puls­ory Pur­chase Act to be ap­plic­able in their im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions. They shall provide that the can­ton­al gov­ern­ment de­cide on ob­jec­tions that re­main in dis­pute.134

3 Fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion on com­puls­ory pur­chase ap­plies to pro­jects loc­ated on the ter­rit­ory of more than one can­ton.135 The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions de­cides on the com­puls­ory pur­chase in such cases.

132Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

133SR 711

134 Amended by An­nex No 17 of the FA of 19 June 2020, in force since 1 Jan. 2021 (AS 2020 4085; BBl 2018 4713).

135Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 59 Cost of safety and remedial measures 136  

The cost of meas­ures taken by the au­thor­it­ies to pre­vent im­min­ent pol­lu­tion of the en­vir­on­ment, to es­tab­lish its ex­ist­ence, or to rem­edy it are charged to the per­son re­spons­ible for the pol­lu­tion.

136Amended by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Title 4 Liability137

137Inserted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 July 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

Art. 59a General provisions 138  

1 The op­er­at­or of an es­tab­lish­ment or an in­stall­a­tion that rep­res­ents a spe­cial threat to the en­vir­on­ment is li­able for the loss or dam­age arising from ef­fects that oc­cur when this threat be­comes real­ity. In the case of loss or dam­age that arises from the hand­ling of patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms, Art­icle 59abis ap­plies.139

2 As a rule, the fol­low­ing es­tab­lish­ments and in­stall­a­tions are re­garded as rep­res­ent­ing a spe­cial threat to the en­vir­on­ment:

a.
those that the Fed­er­al Coun­cil makes sub­ject to the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions in terms of Art­icle 10 on the basis of the sub­stances or or­gan­isms used or the waste pro­duced;
b.
those that are used for waste dis­pos­al;
c.
those in which li­quids which may pol­lute wa­ter are handled;
d.140
those in which sub­stances are present for which the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has in­tro­duced a li­cens­ing re­quire­ment or oth­er spe­cial reg­u­la­tions to pro­tect the en­vir­on­ment.

3 Any per­son who proves that the loss or dam­age was caused by force ma­jeure or by gross neg­li­gence on the part of the in­jured party or of a third party is re­lieved of li­ab­il­ity.

4 Art­icles 42–47 and 49–53 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions141 ap­ply.142

5 The re­ser­va­tion in Art­icle 3 ap­plies to li­ab­il­ity pro­vi­sions in oth­er fed­er­al acts.

6 The Con­fed­er­a­tion, can­tons and com­munes may also be held li­able in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–5.

138 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

139 Word­ing of the second sen­tence ac­cord­ing to An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

140 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

141 SR 220

142 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 59abis Pathogenic organisms 143  

1 Per­sons sub­ject to an au­thor­isa­tion or no­ti­fic­a­tion ob­lig­a­tion who handle patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms in a con­tained sys­tem, re­lease such or­gan­isms for ex­per­i­ment­al pur­poses or put them in­to cir­cu­la­tion without au­thor­isa­tion are li­able for any loss or dam­age that arises from such con­duct.

2 The per­son re­quired to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion is ex­clus­ively li­able for any loss or dam­age oc­ca­sioned to an ag­ri­cul­tur­al or forestry es­tab­lish­ment or cus­tom­ers of products from such es­tab­lish­ments by patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms that are au­thor­ised to be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion if the or­gan­isms:

a.
are con­tained in aux­il­i­ary agents used in ag­ri­cul­ture or forestry144; or
b.
ori­gin­ate from such aux­il­i­ary agents.

3 In the case of li­ab­il­ity un­der para­graph 2, re­course is re­served against per­sons who have handled such or­gan­isms im­prop­erly or have oth­er­wise con­trib­uted to caus­ing or ag­grav­at­ing the loss or dam­age.

4 If loss or dam­age is caused by any oth­er patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms that are au­thor­ised to be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion, the per­son re­quired to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion is li­able if the or­gan­isms are de­fect­ive. He is also li­able for any de­fect that he was un­able to de­tect ac­cord­ing to the stand­ards of sci­ence and tech­no­logy at the time that the or­gan­ism was put in­to cir­cu­la­tion.

5 Patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms are de­fect­ive if they do not of­fer the level of safety that any­one is en­titled to ex­pect tak­ing ac­count of all the cir­cum­stances; the fol­low­ing must be taken in­to ac­count in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the way in which they are presen­ted to the pub­lic;
b.
the use that may reas­on­ably be ex­pec­ted;
c.
the time at which they were put in­to cir­cu­la­tion.

6 A product con­tain­ing patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms is not de­fect­ive simply be­cause an im­proved product has sub­sequently been put in­to cir­cu­la­tion.

7 The loss or dam­age must be due to the patho­gen­i­city of the or­gan­isms.

8 The bur­den of prov­ing a caus­al con­nec­tion lies with the per­son claim­ing dam­ages. If such proof can­not be provided with cer­tainty or if the per­son sub­ject to the bur­den can­not reas­on­ably be ex­pec­ted to present the re­quired evid­ence, the court may sat­is­fy it­self on the bal­ance of prob­ab­il­ity. The court may also or­der that the facts of the case be es­tab­lished ex of­fi­cio.

9 The per­son re­quired to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion or file a re­port must also re­im­burse the costs of the re­quired and ap­pro­pri­ate meas­ures that have been taken to re­con­sti­t­ute ele­ments of the en­vir­on­ment that have been des­troyed or dam­aged or to re­place such ele­ments with their equi­val­ents. If the des­troyed or dam­aged ele­ments of the en­vir­on­ment are not the sub­ject of a prop­erty right or if the per­son en­titled does not take the meas­ures re­quired in the cir­cum­stances, the right to dam­ages be­comes that of the pub­lic au­thor­ity con­cerned.

10 Any per­son who proves that the loss or dam­age was caused by force ma­jeure or by gross neg­li­gence on the part of the in­jured party or of a third party is re­lieved of li­ab­il­ity.

11 Art­icles 42–47 and 49–53 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions145 ap­ply.

12 The Con­fed­er­a­tion, can­tons and com­munes may also be held li­able in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–11.

143 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

144 Ex­pres­sion in Ger­man ver­sion in ac­cord­ance with No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435). This amend­ment has been made throughout the Act.

145 SR 220

Art. 59b Guarantee  

For the pro­tec­tion of in­jured parties, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may:

a.146
re­quire that the op­er­at­ors of cer­tain es­tab­lish­ments or in­stall­a­tions as well as the per­sons re­quired to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion or file a re­port that handle patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms to provide a guar­an­tee for their po­ten­tial li­ab­il­ity through in­sur­ance or in an­oth­er man­ner;
b.
de­term­ine the ex­tent and the dur­a­tion of this guar­an­tee or leave this to the au­thor­ity to de­cide on a case-by-case basis;
c.
re­quire those provid­ing a guar­an­tee for li­ab­il­ity to no­ti­fy the en­force­ment au­thor­ity of the ex­ist­ence, sus­pen­sion and ter­min­a­tion of the guar­an­tee;
d.
provide that the guar­an­tee must not be sus­pen­ded or ter­min­ated un­til 60 days after re­ceipt of the no­ti­fic­a­tion;
e.
provide that land on which a waste dis­pos­al site is situ­ated be­comes the prop­erty of the can­ton when the site is closed, and en­act reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing any com­pens­a­tion.

146 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 59c Prescription 147  

1 The right to dam­ages pre­scribes in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 60 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions148.

2 If the loss or dam­age oc­curs due to the hand­ling of patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms, the right to dam­ages pre­scribes three years after the in­jured per­son ob­tains know­ledge of the loss or dam­age and of the iden­tity of the per­son li­able, but at the latest 30 years after:

a.
the event that caused the loss or dam­age oc­curred in the es­tab­lish­ment or in the in­stall­a­tion or came to an end; or
b.
the patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms were put in­to cir­cu­la­tion.

147 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

148 SR 220

Art. 59d Prescription of the right of recourse 149  

The right of re­course pre­scribes in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 59c. The three-year peri­od be­gins to run as soon as pay­ment of the dam­ages has been made in full and the iden­tity of the per­son jointly li­able is known.

149 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Title 5 Criminal Provisions150

150Originally Title 4.

Art. 60 Misdemeanours  

1 Li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty is any per­son who wil­fully:151

a.
fails to take the safety meas­ures pre­scribed for the pre­ven­tion of dis­asters or fails to com­ply with the pro­hib­i­tion of cer­tain pro­duc­tion meth­ods or the keep­ing of cer­tain stocks (Art. 10);
b.
puts sub­stances in­to cir­cu­la­tion which he knows or must as­sume may present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people when used in a cer­tain man­ner (Art. 26);
c.
puts sub­stances in­to cir­cu­la­tion without in­form­ing re­cip­i­ents about their en­vir­on­ment-re­lated prop­er­ties (Art. 27 para. 1 let. a) or provid­ing in­struc­tions on their re­quired hand­ling (Art. 27 para. 1 let. b);
d.
handles sub­stances con­trary to in­struc­tions in such a man­ner that they, their de­riv­at­ives or waste may present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people (Art. 28);
e.152
in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on sub­stances or or­gan­isms (Art. 29, 29b para. 2, 29f, 30a let. b and 34 para. 1);
f.153
handles or­gan­isms in such a man­ner that the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a para­graph 1 are in­fringed;
g.154
fails to take all the con­tain­ment meas­ures re­quired when hand­ling patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms (Art. 29b para. 1);
h.155
without au­thor­isa­tion, re­leases patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms for ex­per­i­ment­al pur­poses or puts them in­to cir­cu­la­tion for uses in the en­vir­on­ment (Art. 29c para. 1 and 29d paras. 3 and 4);
i.156
puts or­gan­isms in­to cir­cu­la­tion that he knows or must as­sume will in­fringe the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a para­graph 1 when used in a cer­tain man­ner (Art. 29d para. 1);
j.157
puts or­gan­isms in­to cir­cu­la­tion without provid­ing re­cip­i­ents with the re­quired in­form­a­tion and in­struc­tions (Art. 29e para. 1);
k.158
handles or­gan­isms con­trary to the in­struc­tions (Art. 29e para. 2);
l.159
...
m.
con­structs or op­er­ates a land­fill without au­thor­isa­tion (Art. 30e para. 2);
n.
fails to mark spe­cial waste as such for trans­fer (Art. 30f para. 2 let. a) or hands it over to an un­der­tak­ing that does not hold the rel­ev­ant au­thor­isa­tion (Art. 30f para. 2 let. b);
o.
ac­cepts, im­ports or ex­ports spe­cial waste without au­thor­isa­tion (Art. 30f para. 2 let. c and d);
p.
in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on the move­ment of spe­cial waste (Art. 30f para. 1);
q.160
in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on waste (Art. 30a let. b);
r.161
in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on the put­ting in­to cir­cu­la­tion for the first time of tim­ber and wood products and raw ma­ter­i­als and products spe­cified by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil pur­su­ant to Art­icle 35epara­graph 3 (Art. 35e and 35fpara. 1 and 2 let. a).

2 If the of­fend­er acts neg­li­gently, he or she is li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty not ex­ceed­ing 180 daily pen­alty units.162

151Amended by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

152 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

153 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

154 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

155 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

156 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

157 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

158 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

159 Re­pealed by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

160Amended by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

161 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021 614; BBl 2019 1251).

162Amended by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

Art. 61 Contraventions  

1 Li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 20,000 francs is any per­son who wil­fully:163

a.
fails to com­ply with the lim­it­a­tions of emis­sions stip­u­lated in this Act (Art. 12 and 34 para. 1);
b.
fails to com­ply with re­medi­ation or­ders (Art. 16 and 32c para. 1);
c.
fails to carry out of­fi­cially ordered sound­proof­ing meas­ures (Art. 19–25);
d.
provides false or in­com­plete in­form­a­tion or in­struc­tions (Art. 27);
e.
handles sub­stances with no ac­com­pa­ny­ing in­form­a­tion or in­struc­tions in such a man­ner that they, their de­riv­at­ives or waste may present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people (Art. 28);
f.
burns waste il­leg­ally out­side in­stall­a­tions (Art. 30c para. 2);
g.
de­pos­its waste out­side au­thor­ised land­fills (Art. 30e para. 1);
h.
in­fringes the re­port­ing du­ties in con­nec­tion with waste (Art. 30fpara. 4, 30g para. 2, 32b para. 2 and 3);
i.
in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on waste (Art. 30a let. a and c, 30b, 30c para. 3, 30d, 30h para. 1, 32abis, 32b para. 4 and 32e para. 1–4);
k.
in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on the move­ment of oth­er forms of waste (Art. 30gpara. 1);
l.
fails to guar­an­tee cov­er­age of the costs of clos­ure, after-care and re­medi­ation of a land­fill (Art. 32b para. 1);
m.
in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on phys­ic­al im­pacts on and the use of the soil (Art. 33 para. 2 and 34 para. 1 and 2) or on meas­ures to re­duce the soil pol­lu­tion (Art. 34 para. 3);
mbis.164
in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on the trace­ab­il­ity of tim­ber and wood products and raw ma­ter­i­als and products spe­cified by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil pur­su­ant to Art­icle 35epara­graph 3 and for which a documentation requirement has been imposed (Art. 35g para. 1);
n.
in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on pla­cing series-pro­duced in­stall­a­tions165 on the mar­ket (Art. 40);
o.
re­fuses to provide in­form­a­tion to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity or provides in­cor­rect in­form­a­tion (Art. 46);
p.166
in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on provid­ing a guar­an­tee for li­ab­il­ity (Art. 59b).

2 If the of­fend­er acts neg­li­gently, the pen­alty is a fine.

3 At­tempts and com­pli­city are also of­fences.

163Amended by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

164 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 27 Sept. 2019, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2021 614; BBl 2019 1251).

165Pre­vi­ously: type ap­prov­al test­ing and la­belling

166Amended by No II 1 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435).

Art. 61a Offences against the regulations on incentive taxes and on biogenic motor and thermal fuels 167168  

1 Any per­son who wil­fully or neg­li­gently evades pay­ment or ob­structs the col­lec­tion of a tax in terms of Art­icles 35a, 35b or 35bbis or ob­tains for him­self or an­oth­er an un­law­ful tax ad­vant­age (ex­emp­tion from or re­fund of tax) is li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing five times the amount of the tax that is evaded or the col­lec­tion of which is ob­struc­ted, or of the ad­vant­age gained. If the amount of tax can­not be pre­cisely quan­ti­fied, it must be es­tim­ated.169

2 Any per­son who wil­fully or neg­li­gently puts bio­gen­ic mo­tor or thermal fuels in­to cir­cu­la­tion without au­thor­isa­tion in terms of Art­icle 35d or ob­tains au­thor­isa­tion by provid­ing false, in­ac­cur­ate or in­com­plete in­form­a­tion is li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 500 000 francs.170


3 Any at­tempt to com­mit an of­fence un­der para­graphs 1 and 2 is an of­fence.171

4 The Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity (FO­CBS)172 is the pro­sec­ut­ing and ad­ju­dic­at­ing au­thor­ity.173

5 If any act is an of­fence in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 to 3 and at the same time an­oth­er of­fence against fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion that must be judged by the FO­CBS174, the pen­alty car­ried by the more ser­i­ous of­fence ap­plies; this may be in­creased ap­pro­pri­ately.175

167In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995, in force since 1 Ju­ly 1997 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445).

168 Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

169 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 20034215; BBl 20026464).

170 Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

171 Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

172 Name in ac­cord­ance with No I 31 of the Or­din­ance of 12 June 2020 on the Amend­ment of Le­gis­la­tion as a con­sequence of the Change to the Name of the Fed­er­al Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion as part of its fur­ther De­vel­op­ment, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2020 2743).

173Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

174 Name in ac­cord­ance with No I 31 of the Or­din­ance of 12 June 2020 on the Amend­ment of Le­gis­la­tion as a con­sequence of the Change to the Name of the Fed­er­al Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion as part of its fur­ther De­vel­op­ment, in force since 1 Jan. 2022 (AS 2020 2743).

175In­ser­ted by the An­nex to the FA of 21 March 2014 (AS 2016 2661; BBl 2013 57375783). Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

Art. 62 Application of administrative criminal law  

1 Art­icles 6 and 7 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974176 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law ap­ply to of­fences un­der this Act.

2 For of­fences against Art­icle 61a, the oth­er pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law also ap­ply.177

176SR 313.0

177In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 21 Dec. 1995 (AS 1997 1155; BBl 1993 II 1445). Amended by the An­nex to the FA of 21 March 2014 Amended by No I 3 of the FA of 20 Dec. 2019 on the Ex­ten­sion of the Time Lim­it for Tax Re­lief for Nat­ur­al Gas, Li­quid Gas and Bio­gen­ic Fuels and on the Amend­ment of the Fed­er­al Act on the Re­duc­tion of CO2 Emis­sions, in force from 1 Ju­ly 2020 to 31 Dec. 2023, ex­ten­ded to 31 Dec. 2024 (AS 2020 1269; 2022 262; BBl 2019 5679, 5813; 2021 2252, 2254).

Title 6 Final Provisions178

178Originally Title 5.

Art. 63179  

179 Re­pealed by No II 32 of the FA of 20 March 2008 on the Form­al Re­vi­sion of Fed­er­al Le­gis­la­tion, with ef­fect from 1 Aug. 2008 (AS 2008 3437; BBl 2007 6121).

Art. 64 Adaptation of federal ordinances  

If reg­u­la­tions re­lat­ing to en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion en­acted un­der oth­er fed­er­al acts con­tra­dict or fail to com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of this Act, they must be ad­ap­ted or sup­ple­men­ted in ac­cord­ance with a sched­ule to be laid down by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

Art. 65 Environmental law of the Cantons  

1 Un­less and un­til the Fed­er­al Coun­cil ex­pressly ex­er­cises its power to en­act or­din­ances, the can­tons may en­act their own reg­u­la­tions in terms of this Act, after con­sult­ing the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions.

2 The can­tons may not stip­u­late any new am­bi­ent lim­it val­ues, alarm levels or plan­ning val­ues nor en­act any new reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing con­form­ity as­sess­ments for series-pro­duced in­stall­a­tions or for the hand­ling of sub­stances or or­gan­isms.180 Ex­ist­ing can­ton­al reg­u­la­tions ap­ply un­til re­lated Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­la­tions come in­to force.

180 Amended by An­nex No 4 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 65a Transitional provision to the Amendment of 26 September 2014 181  

Ap­plic­a­tions for pay­ments to­wards the costs of meas­ures un­der Art­icle 32e para­graph 4 let­ter b num­ber 2 shall in derog­a­tion from Art­icle 36 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 1990182 be as­sessed in ac­cord­ance with the law ap­plic­able after the date on which the ap­plic­a­tion is filed if work began on the meas­ures be­fore the Amend­ment of 26 Septem­ber 2014 comes in­to force. The ap­plic­a­tions must be filed two years at the latest after the Amend­ment comes in­to force.

181 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 26 Sept. 2014, in force since 1 April 2015 (AS 2015865; BBl 2014 36733685).

182 SR 616.1

Art. 66 Amendment of federal legislation  

...183


183The amend­ments may be con­sul­ted un­der AS 1984 1122.

Art. 67 Referendum and commencement  

1 This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the com­mence­ment date.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Janu­ary 1985184

184FCD of 12 Sept. 1984.

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