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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 ul­tra­sound 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 and pre­par­a­tion for its re­use.¹⁷,¹⁸

^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.¹⁹

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.²⁰

⁹ Re­new­able mo­tor fuels are li­quid or gaseous mo­tor fuels that are pro­duced from bio­mass or by us­ing oth­er re­new­able en­ergy sources.²¹

¹⁰ Re­new­able thermal fuels are sol­id, li­quid or gaseous thermal fuels that are pro­duced from bio­mass or by us­ing oth­er re­new­able en­ergy sources.²²

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

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.²⁴ 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.²⁵

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.

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.

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.²⁷

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.

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.

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

² Man­u­fac­tur­ing and busi­ness secrecy shall be duly ob­served.

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.

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 Fed­er­al As­sembly.

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 2004²⁹ (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 1968³⁰. 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.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion and, with­in the scope of their re­spons­ib­il­it­ies, the can­tons shall en­sure that nat­ur­al re­sources are con­served. They shall in par­tic­u­lar com­mit to re­du­cing the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact of products and build­ings throughout their en­tire life cycle, clos­ing any gaps in ma­ter­i­al cycles and im­prov­ing re­source ef­fi­ciency. The en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact caused abroad shall be taken in­to ac­count.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall re­port reg­u­larly to the Fed­er­al As­sembly on the con­sump­tion of nat­ur­al re­sources and the de­vel­op­ment of re­source ef­fi­ciency. It shall identi­fy any need for fur­ther ac­tion and sub­mit pro­pos­als for qual­it­at­ive and quant­it­at­ive re­source tar­gets aimed at the product or building and its life cycle. As far as possible, it shall use internationally recognised standards to measure these targets.

³ The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­tons shall reg­u­larly ex­am­ine wheth­er the le­gis­la­tion they have en­acted is hinder­ing in­dustry ini­ti­at­ives to con­serve re­sources and im­prove the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy.

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.

¹ Emis­sions are lim­ited by is­su­ing:

a.

emis­sion lim­it 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.³²

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.³³

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.

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.³⁴

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.

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.³⁵ 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.

¹ Put­ting sub­stances in­to cir­cu­la­tion for uses where, when handled cor­rectly, they, their de­riv­at­ives or waste may present a danger to the en­vir­on­ment or in­dir­ectly en­danger people is pro­hib­ited.³⁶

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.³⁷

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.³⁹

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.

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.

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 2003⁴².

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

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 re­quire­ment 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 re­quire­ment or for ex­emp­tions if, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, an in­fringe­ment of the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a is ex­cluded.

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 re­quire­ment or for ex­emp­tions if, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, an in­fringe­ment of the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a is ex­cluded.

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 re­quire­ment or for ex­emp­tions if, in the light of cur­rent sci­entif­ic know­ledge or ex­per­i­ence, an in­fringe­ment of prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a is ex­cluded.

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 1968⁴⁴ 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.

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.

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.

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 2003⁴⁵) ad­vise the Fed­er­al Coun­cil on the is­sue of reg­u­la­tions and on the en­force­ment of pro­vi­sions on or­gan­isms.

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.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may:

a.

pro­hib­it put­ting products in­ten­ded for once-only, short-term use in­to cir­cu­la­tion 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.

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.

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.

¹ Waste must be re­used or ma­ter­i­ally re­covered if this is tech­nic­ally pos­sible and eco­nom­ic­ally vi­able and has less im­pact on the en­vir­on­ment than an al­tern­at­ive form of dis­pos­al or the man­u­fac­ture of new products.

² In ac­cord­ance with the prin­ciples set out in para­graph 1, the fol­low­ing in par­tic­u­lar must be re­covered:

a.

re­cov­er­able metals from waste, wastewa­ter and ex­haust air treat­ment residues;

b.

re­cov­er­able parts from un­con­tam­in­ated ex­cav­ated ma­ter­i­al destined for land­fill;

c.

phos­phor­us from sewage sludge and from an­im­al and bone meal and food waste;

d.

waste suit­able for com­post­ing or fer­ment­a­tion;

e.

ni­tro­gen from wastewa­ter treat­ment plants.

³ If ma­ter­i­al re­cov­ery is not pos­sible in ac­cord­ance with the con­di­tions in para­graph 1, the waste must be pri­or­it­ised first for ma­ter­i­al/en­ergy re­cov­ery, and secondly for en­ergy re­cov­ery only.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the quant­ity of phos­phor­us to be re­turned to the eco­nom­ic cir­cuit from mu­ni­cip­al wastewa­ter or from sewage sludge pro­duced by cent­ral­ised wastewa­ter treat­ment plants. It shall do so based on do­mest­ic re­quire­ments.

⁵ The ob­lig­a­tion to ma­ter­i­ally re­cov­er phos­phor­us from sewage sludge shall be deemed ful­filled when the per­son de­liv­er­ing the sewage sludge proves to the en­force­ment au­thor­ity that, for the de­livered quant­ity of sewage sludge, the quant­ity of phos­phor­ous stip­u­lated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has been re­turned to the eco­nom­ic cir­cuit. The op­er­at­ing and cap­it­al costs not covered by the pro­ceeds from the products, such as phos­phor­ic acid, shall be borne by the pro­du­cers of sewage sludge.

⁶ If it is proved that the ob­lig­a­tion to re­cov­er phos­phor­ous from sewage sludge, as set out in para­graph 5, has been ful­filled, the sewage sludge may be used as a sub­sti­tute fuel without the re­quire­ment to re­cov­er phos­phor­ous from it.

⁷ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may 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.

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.

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 …⁴⁹

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 …⁵⁰

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.

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.

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.

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.⁵¹

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.

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.

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.

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.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­quire man­u­fac­tur­ers, im­port­ers and for­eign on­line re­tail com­pan­ies which put products in­to cir­cu­la­tion in Switzer­land 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 shall be used to fin­ance the dis­pos­al of the waste by private in­di­vidu­als or pub­lic cor­por­a­tions.⁵⁵

^1bis A for­eign on­line re­tail com­pany is a com­pany that of­fers products for sale on­line on a pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial basis, de­liv­ers these products or has them de­livered to con­sumers in Switzer­land, and has neither a re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile nor a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land.⁵⁶

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set 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 Com­mu­nic­a­tions⁵⁷ shall de­term­ine the level of the fee.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the meth­ods for 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.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity (FO­CBS) shall provide the private or­gan­isa­tion with the de­tails from the cus­toms de­clar­a­tions that are re­quired for the col­lec­tion of the pre­paid dis­pos­al fee in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.⁵⁸

⁵ The im­port of products sub­ject to charges in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 is ex­cluded from the sim­pli­fied goods de­clar­a­tion un­der cus­toms le­gis­la­tion.⁵⁹

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall take meas­ures, in par­tic­u­lar by im­pos­ing an ob­lig­a­tion to des­ig­nate a rep­res­ent­at­ive in Switzer­land, to en­sure that for­eign on­line re­tail com­pan­ies ful­fil their ob­lig­a­tions to pay charges. In do­ing so, it shall take Switzer­land’s in­ter­na­tion­al ob­lig­a­tions in­to ac­count.

If the ob­lig­a­tion to des­ig­nate a rep­res­ent­at­ive in Switzer­land is de­term­ined as a meas­ure un­der Art­icle 32a^quater, this rep­res­ent­at­ive shall be jointly and sev­er­ally li­able for the fee un­der Art­icle 32a^bis and for the con­tri­bu­tion un­der Art­icle 32a^ter.

¹ If an elec­tron­ic plat­form op­er­at­or en­ables products to be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32a^bis or Art­icle 32a^ter by bring­ing for­eign on­line re­tail com­pan­ies in­to con­tact with con­sumers in or­der to con­clude a con­tract on the plat­form, the op­er­at­or shall be re­spons­ible for provid­ing the private or­gan­isa­tion or private sec­tor or­gan­isa­tion with in­form­a­tion and de­tails on the fee and con­tri­bu­tion ob­lig­a­tions.

² The op­er­at­or is ob­liged to in­form users of its elec­tron­ic plat­form of their fee and con­tri­bu­tion ob­lig­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 32a^bis and 32a^ter.

³ An elec­tron­ic plat­form op­er­at­or is any­one who op­er­ates a plat­form in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 20a of the Value Ad­ded Tax Act of 12 June 2009⁶⁴.

¹ The Fed­er­al Of­fice may take ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures against per­sons li­able to pay fees or con­tri­bu­tions if they fail to ful­fil their ob­lig­a­tions un­der Art­icles 32a^bis–32a^quin­quies.

² It may im­pose the fol­low­ing ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures:

a.

pub­lic­a­tion of the names of per­sons or en­tit­ies li­able to pay fees or con­tri­bu­tions;

b.

an im­port ban on their products;

c.

tem­por­ary seizure of the products at the bor­der and auc­tion­ing of these products;

d.

tem­por­ary seizure of the products at the bor­der and han­dover of these products free of charge to a char­it­able or­gan­isa­tion;

e.

tem­por­ary seizure of the products at the bor­der and de­struc­tion of these products if they are dam­aged, pose a safety or en­vir­on­ment­al risk or have been im­por­ted il­leg­ally.

³ After ex­penses have been de­duc­ted, the pro­ceeds from the auc­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ter c shall be al­loc­ated to the private or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32a^bis or the private sec­tor or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32a^ter to fin­ance the dis­pos­al of waste.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Of­fice may pub­lish the names of elec­tron­ic plat­form op­er­at­ors that do not ful­fil their ob­lig­a­tions un­der Art­icle 32a^sex­ies.

⁵ It shall con­sult the per­sons or en­tit­ies li­able to pay fees and con­tri­bu­tions and the elec­tron­ic plat­form op­er­at­ors be­fore de­cid­ing on the ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures.

⁶ The meas­ures un­der para­graph 2 let­ters b and e shall be en­forced by the FO­CA, and those un­der para­graph 2 let­ters a, c and d shall be en­forced by the Fed­er­al Of­fice. For the pur­pose of en­for­cing the meas­ures un­der para­graph 2 let­ters c and d, the FO­CA shall hand over the products tem­por­ar­ily seized at the bor­der to the Fed­er­al Of­fice.

When im­ple­ment­ing Art­icles 32a^bis–32a^sep­ties, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall take in­to ac­count the reg­u­la­tions of Switzer­land’s main trad­ing part­ners.

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.

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.

¹ The can­tons shall en­sure that the fol­low­ing sites are re­medi­ated if such sites lead to harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances or if there is a clear risk that such ef­fects may arise:

a.

land­fills and oth­er sites pol­luted by waste (pol­luted sites);

b.

pub­lic chil­dren's play­grounds and pub­lic green spaces where the soil is con­tam­in­ated with en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances and where small chil­dren reg­u­larly play.⁶⁹

^1bis The can­tons may provide fin­an­cial sup­port for re­medi­at­ing private chil­dren's play­grounds and private gar­dens if:

a.

the soils of these sites are con­tam­in­ated with en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances and young chil­dren reg­u­larly play on them; and

b.

these loc­a­tions lead to harm­ful ef­fects or nuis­ances or there is a clear risk that such ef­fects will arise.⁷⁰

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

³ They may in­vest­ig­ate, mon­it­or and re­medi­ate 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.

⁴The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on the need for re­medi­ation and on the ob­ject­ives and ur­gency of re­medi­ation for sites in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.⁷¹

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.

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.

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.⁷³

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.⁷⁴

^2bis The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ad­just the rate of the charge un­der para­graph 2 in line with Swiss Con­sumer Price In­dex.⁷⁵

^{3–6 …76}

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of in­vest­ig­at­ing sites that prove not to be con­tam­in­ated (Art. 32d para. 5) if the in­vest­ig­a­tions are com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045.

²The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of in­vest­ig­at­ing pol­luted sites on which no waste has been de­pos­ited since 31 Janu­ary 2001, provided the need for mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation has been as­sessed by 31 Decem­ber 2032 and:

a.

the per­son re­spons­ible can­not be iden­ti­fied or is in­solv­ent; the fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to the sites re­ferred to in para­graphs 6–8; or

b.

a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the waste de­pos­ited on the site is mu­ni­cip­al waste.

³ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of in­vest­ig­at­ing sites pol­luted by a waste in­cin­er­a­tion plant and on which no waste has been de­pos­ited since 1 Septem­ber 2007, provided the need for mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation has been as­sessed by 31 Decem­ber 2032.

⁴ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­at­ing pol­luted sites on which no waste has been de­pos­ited since 31 Janu­ary 2001, provided the mon­it­or­ing meas­ures and the struc­tur­al re­medi­ation meas­ures have been com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045 and:

a.

the per­son re­spons­ible can­not be iden­ti­fied or is in­solv­ent; the fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to the sites re­ferred to in para­graphs 6 and 7; or

b.

a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the waste de­pos­ited on the site is mu­ni­cip­al waste.

⁵ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­at­ing sites pol­luted by a waste in­cin­er­a­tion plant and on which no waste has been de­pos­ited since 1 Septem­ber 2007, provided the mon­it­or­ing meas­ures and the struc­tur­al re­medi­ation meas­ures have been com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045.

⁶ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of in­vest­ig­at­ing, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­at­ing the fol­low­ing sites at shoot­ing ranges that do not serve a pre­dom­in­antly com­mer­cial pur­pose and are not covered by para­graph 7, provided the meas­ures are com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045:

a.

sites in ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones on which no waste has been de­pos­ited since 31 Decem­ber 2012;

b.

oth­er sites on which no waste has been dis­posed since 31 Decem­ber 2020.

⁷ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the rev­en­ue from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e on sites at shoot­ing ranges for his­tor­ic­al shoot­ing and field shoot­ing to cov­er the costs of suit­able pro­tect­ive meas­ures such as bul­let traps and the costs of in­vest­ig­a­tion, mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation, provided:

a.

the meas­ures are com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045; and

b.

the only waste de­pos­ited on the site is from his­tor­ic­al shoot­ing events or field shoot­ing events that are held no more than once a year and that had already been held reg­u­larly at the same loc­a­tion be­fore 31 Decem­ber 2020.

⁸ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay for the costs of the in­vest­ig­a­tion and re­medi­ation of pub­lic chil­dren's play­grounds and green spaces com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2060 that are re­medi­ated in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32c para­graph 1 let­ter b, provided there is no en­ti­tle­ment to pay­ment in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–7.

⁹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay for the costs of the re­medi­ation of private chil­dren's play­grounds and private gar­dens com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2060 that are re­medi­ated in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32c para­graph 1^bis, provided there is no en­ti­tle­ment to pay­ment in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–7.

¹⁰ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to cov­er the costs of in­vest­ig­at­ing sites pol­luted by ex­tin­guish­ing foams con­tain­ing per­fluoro- and poly­fluoroal­kyl sub­stances (PFAS) and on which no foams con­tain­ing PFASs have been de­pos­ited from two years after the amend­ment of 27 Septem­ber 2024 comes in­to force, provided:

a.

the mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation needs are as­sessed by 31 Decem­ber 2035; and

b.

the fire bri­gades that caused the pol­lu­tion are pub­licly fun­ded or are called in to sup­port or re­place such fire bri­gades.

¹¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall use the in­come from the charges col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e to pay the costs of mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­at­ing sites pol­luted by ex­tin­guish­ing foams con­tain­ing PFAS and on which no foams con­tain­ing PFASs have been de­pos­ited from two years after the amend­ment of 27 Septem­ber 2024 comes in­to force, provided:

a.

the mon­it­or­ing meas­ures and the struc­tur­al re­medi­ation meas­ures are com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045; and

b.

the fire bri­gades that caused the pol­lu­tion are pub­licly fun­ded or are called in to sup­port or re­place such fire bri­gades.

¹² The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall make flat-rate pay­ments to the com­pet­ent can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies from the in­come from the charges for their work in:

a.

as­sess­ing the need for the mon­it­or­ing and re­medi­ation of pol­luted sites re­quir­ing in­vest­ig­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 2 and 4, provided the as­sess­ment is com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2032;

b.

as­sess­ing the re­medi­ation meas­ures for the sites in need of re­medi­ation in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 6 and 7, provided the struc­tur­al re­medi­ation meas­ures are com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045; and

c.

as­sess­ing the re­medi­ation meas­ures for all oth­er sites in need of re­medi­ation, with the ex­cep­tion of those un­der para­graphs 8 and 9, provided the struc­tur­al re­medi­ation meas­ures are com­pleted by 31 Decem­ber 2045.

¹ The pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis shall only be made 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 Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 1: 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;

b.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graphs 2 and 4 let­ter b:

1.

40 per cent of the chargeable costs for sites where no waste has been de­pos­ited since 31 Janu­ary 1996,

2.

30 per cent of the chargeable costs for sites on which waste was de­pos­ited after 31 Janu­ary 1996, but has not been since 31 Janu­ary 2001;

c.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graphs 3 and 5: 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;

d.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4e^bis para­graph 4:

1.

60 per cent of the chargeable costs for sites where no waste has been de­pos­ited since 31 Janu­ary 1996,

2.

30 per cent of the chargeable costs for sites on which waste was de­pos­ited after 31 Janu­ary 1996, but has not been since 31 Janu­ary 2001;

e.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graphs 6 und 7: 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;

f.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 8: 60 per cent of the chargeable costs;

g.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 9: 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;

h.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 10: 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;

i.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 11: 40 per cent of the chargeable costs;

j.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 12 let­ter a: 3,000 francs per site;

k.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 12 let­ter b: 5,000 francs per site;

l.

for pay­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32e^bis para­graph 12 let­ter c: a flat-rate pay­ment 10,000 francs per site.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue 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.

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 1991⁸⁰, on dis­aster man­age­ment, on air pol­lu­tion con­trol, on en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances and or­gan­isms, on waste and on in­cent­ive taxes.⁸¹

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.

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 use⁸² 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.

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.

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 CHF 5 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 the 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.

¹ The per­sons li­able for the tax on volat­ile or­gan­ic com­pounds are those li­able to pay tax on im­ports un­der the Cus­toms Act of 18 March 2005⁸⁶ as well as man­u­fac­tur­ers and pro­du­cers in Switzer­land.⁸⁷

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.⁸⁸

^{3bis …89}

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

¹ Re­new­able thermal and mo­tor fuels may only be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion if they meet cer­tain eco­lo­gic­al re­quire­ments.

² Re­new­able thermal and mo­tor fuels that are pro­duced from food­stuffs or an­im­al feed or that dir­ectly com­pete with the pro­duc­tion of food­stuffs may not be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion. This does not ap­ply to mass-bal­anced re­new­able thermal and mo­tor fuels that meet the eco­lo­gic­al re­quire­ments.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the eco­lo­gic­al re­quire­ments. In do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of com­par­able in­ter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions and stand­ards.

⁴ It may stip­u­late eco­lo­gic­al re­quire­ments for put­ting in­to cir­cu­la­tion oth­er thermal and mo­tor fuels that gen­er­ate sig­ni­fic­antly lower green­house gas emis­sions than con­ven­tion­al fossil thermal and mo­tor fuels.

⁵ It may provide that the re­quire­ments un­der this Art­icle do not ap­ply to:

a.

eth­an­ol used for thermal pur­poses;

b.

re­new­able thermal and mo­tor fuels that are only put in­to cir­cu­la­tion in small quant­it­ies.

⁶ It may provide for fur­ther ex­cep­tions if this is ne­ces­sary due to mar­ket con­di­tions.

¹ Put­ting tim­ber and wood products in­to cir­cu­la­tion for the first time where such products 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.

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 a no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ment on those who put tim­ber or wood products in­to 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.

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 for timber or wood products and other raw materials and products that it specifies pursuant to Article 35eparagraph 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.

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.

¹ De­pend­ing on the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact caused by products and pack­aging, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may lay down re­quire­ments for put­ting them in­to cir­cu­la­tion, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to:

a.

us­ab­il­ity and ser­vice life, avail­ab­il­ity of spare parts and re­par­ab­il­ity of products;

b.

avoid­ing harm­ful ef­fects and in­creas­ing re­source ef­fi­ciency dur­ing their life cycle;

c.

uni­form, com­par­able, vis­ible and com­pre­hens­ible la­belling and in­form­a­tion;

d.

in­tro­duc­tion of a re­pair in­dex.

² When im­ple­ment­ing para­graph 1, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall take ac­count of the reg­u­la­tions of Switzer­land’s main trad­ing part­ners.

¹ As part of a com­pre­hens­ive, build­ing- and life cycle-based sus­tain­ab­il­ity as­sess­ment in ac­cord­ance with the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact caused by build­ings and tak­ing ac­count of Switzer­land’s in­ter­na­tion­al ob­lig­a­tions, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set re­quire­ments for:

a.

the use of en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly build­ing ma­ter­i­als and com­pon­ents;

b.

the use of build­ing ma­ter­i­als that ori­gin­ate from the ma­ter­i­al re­cov­ery of con­struc­tion waste;

c.

the re­mov­ab­il­ity of build­ings; and

d.

the re­use of com­pon­ents in build­ings.

² The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall act as a role mod­el in the plan­ning, con­struc­tion, op­er­a­tion, renov­a­tion and re­mov­al of its own build­ings. It shall take ac­count of in­creased re­quire­ments for re­source-sav­ing con­struc­tion and in­nov­at­ive solu­tions.

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

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

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.

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.⁹⁹

² It may con­clude in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on:¹⁰⁰

a.

tech­nic­al reg­u­la­tions;

a^bis.¹⁰¹

en­vir­on­ment­ally haz­ard­ous sub­stances (Art. 26–29);

b.¹⁰²

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 …¹⁰³

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.

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), 30f and 30g (Im­port and ex­port of waste), 31a para­graph 2 and 31c para­graph 3 (Fed­er­al waste dis­pos­al meas­ures), 32a^bis–32a^sep­ties (Pre-paid dis­pos­al fee and re­cyc­ling con­tri­bu­tions), 32e para­graphs 1–4 (Charge to fin­ance re­medi­ation), 35a–35c (In­cent­ive taxes), 35d (Re­quire­ments for mo­tor and thermal fuels), 35e–35h (Tim­ber or wood products or oth­er raw ma­ter­i­als and products), 35i (Re­source-con­serving design of products and pack­aging), 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.¹⁰⁵

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 1997¹⁰⁶ in re­la­tion to en­force­ment.¹⁰⁷

³ If the pro­ced­ure un­der para­graph 2 is not suit­able for cer­tain du­ties, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates en­force­ment by the fed­er­al agen­cies con­cerned.¹⁰⁸

⁴ The fed­er­al en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies must take ac­count of can­ton­al en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion meas­ures.¹⁰⁹

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.

⁴ When en­act­ing the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions, they shall take ac­count of vol­un­tary meas­ures already taken by com­pan­ies, provided these have at least the same ef­fect on en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion as the im­ple­ment­ing le­gis­la­tion.¹¹¹

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.¹¹²

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

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.

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.¹¹⁵

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.

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

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.¹¹⁸

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.¹¹⁹

¹ and² ...¹²¹

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.¹²² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates re­spons­ib­il­it­ies and the pro­ced­ure.¹²³

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.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue pro­vi­sions for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of in­nov­at­ive pi­lot pro­jects that derog­ate from this Act, provided that these pro­vi­sions are lim­ited in terms of time, place and sub­ject mat­ter and serve to gath­er ex­per­i­ence for the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of this Act and its en­force­ment.

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion may pro­mote the ba­sic and con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing of spe­cial­ists who carry out activ­it­ies re­lated to en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion.¹²⁵

1^bis In or­der to en­sure a high-qual­ity range of courses, it may make con­tri­bu­tions to private or­gan­isa­tions that of­fer ba­sic and con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing courses on the hand­ling of plant pro­tec­tion products con­tain­ing sub­stances in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 29. The con­tri­bu­tions shall be based on the Con­fed­er­a­tion's in­terest in the ful­fil­ment of the task and the fund­ing op­tions for the be­ne­fi­ciary or­gan­isa­tion and amount to a max­im­um of 50 per cent of the eli­gible course costs. Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance may also be paid as a lump sum based on the es­tim­ated costs of an ef­fi­ciently provided ser­vice.¹²⁶

² It may com­mis­sion or sup­port re­search stud­ies and tech­no­logy as­sess­ments.¹²⁷

³ It may pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment, cer­ti­fic­a­tion, veri­fic­a­tion and mar­ket in­tro­duc­tion 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. Every five years, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall make a gen­er­al as­sess­ment of the ef­fect of the pro­mo­tion and re­ports to the Fed­er­al As­sembly on the res­ults.¹²⁸

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion may grant fin­an­cial aid for:

a.

in­form­a­tion and ad­vis­ory pro­jects re­lated to en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion;

b.

plat­forms for con­serving re­sources and im­prov­ing the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy.

² Fin­an­cial aid may not ex­ceed 50 per cent of the costs.

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 1985¹³¹ 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.

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.

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 guar­an­tee cred­its for two or more years in each case.¹³⁴

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

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late that parties must file doc­u­ments with the fed­er­al en­force­ment au­thor­ity elec­tron­ic­ally if they reg­u­larly:

a.

file sub­mis­sions in pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act; or

b.

have to ful­fil a no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ment based on reg­u­la­tions on the pro­tec­tion of the en­vir­on­ment.

² It may re­cog­nise a dif­fer­ent meth­od from a qual­i­fied elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture for a party to con­firm in­form­a­tion when elec­tron­ic­ally fil­ing sub­mis­sions whose sig­na­ture is re­quired by law.

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

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.

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.

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 1930¹⁴³ 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.

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 1968¹⁴⁵ 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.

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

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

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.

¹ The Fed­er­al Of­fice has the 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.¹⁵⁰

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

³ …¹⁵¹

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.

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.¹⁵²

² The can­tons may de­clare the Fed­er­al Act of 20 June 1930¹⁵³ 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.¹⁵⁴

³ Fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion on com­puls­ory pur­chase ap­plies to pro­jects loc­ated on the ter­rit­ory of more than one can­ton.¹⁵⁵ The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions de­cides on the com­puls­ory pur­chase in such cases.

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.

¹ The Fed­er­al Of­fice may op­er­ate in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion sys­tems in or­der to carry out pro­ced­ures un­der this Act elec­tron­ic­ally.

² When pro­ced­ures are car­ried out elec­tron­ic­ally, the au­then­ti­city and in­teg­rity of the trans­mit­ted data must be en­sured.

³ The Fed­er­al Of­fice may grant the fol­low­ing bod­ies and per­sons ac­cess to the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion sys­tems:

a.

Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity (FO­CBS):

b.

the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for en­force­ment;

c.

per­sons sub­ject to au­thor­isa­tion or no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ments;

d.

the oth­er bod­ies and per­sons des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary for the ful­fil­ment of tasks and du­ties un­der this Act.

⁴ The bod­ies and per­sons re­ferred to in para­graph 3 may re­trieve per­son­al data from the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion sys­tems and pro­cess them in­so­far as this is ne­ces­sary for the ful­fil­ment of their tasks and du­ties un­der this Act. The re­triev­al and pro­cessing of par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive per­son­al data re­lat­ing to ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­sec­u­tions or sanc­tions is re­served for the bod­ies and per­sons re­ferred to in para­graph 3 let­ters a, b and d.

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 59a^bis ap­plies.¹⁶⁰

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.¹⁶¹

those in which sub­stances are present for which the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has in­tro­duced an au­thor­isa­tion 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 Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁶² ap­ply.¹⁶³

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.

¹ Per­sons sub­ject to an au­thor­isa­tion or no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ment who handle patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms in a con­tained sys­tem, re­lease such or­gan­isms for ex­per­i­ment­al pur­poses or put them in­to cir­cu­la­tion without au­thor­isa­tion shall be 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 forestry¹⁶⁵; 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 sub­ject to the au­thor­isa­tion or no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ment 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 Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁶⁶ ap­ply.

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

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

a.¹⁶⁷

re­quire that the op­er­at­ors of cer­tain es­tab­lish­ments or in­stall­a­tions as well as the per­sons sub­ject to an au­thor­isa­tion or no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ment 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.

¹ The right to dam­ages pre­scribes in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 60 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁶⁹.

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.

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.

¹ A cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty shall be im­posed on any per­son who wil­fully:¹⁷³

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.¹⁷⁴

in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on sub­stances or or­gan­isms (Art. 29, 29b para. 2, 29f, 30a let. b and 34 para. 1);

f.¹⁷⁵

handles or­gan­isms in such a man­ner that the prin­ciples con­tained in Art­icle 29a para­graph 1 are in­fringed;

g.¹⁷⁶

fails to take all the con­tain­ment meas­ures re­quired when hand­ling patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms (Art. 29b para. 1);

h.¹⁷⁷

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.¹⁷⁸

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.¹⁷⁹

puts or­gan­isms in­to cir­cu­la­tion without provid­ing re­cip­i­ents with the re­quired in­form­a­tion and in­struc­tions (Art. 29e para. 1);

k.¹⁸⁰

handles or­gan­isms con­trary to the in­struc­tions (Art. 29e para. 2);

l.¹⁸¹

...

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.¹⁸²

ac­cepts or ar­ranges for the im­port or ex­port of 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.¹⁸³

in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on waste (Art. 30a let. b);

r.¹⁸⁴

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);

s.¹⁸⁵

in­fringes reg­u­la­tions on the re­source-con­serving design of products and pack­aging (Art. 35i para. 1);

t.¹⁸⁶

puts re­new­able thermal or mo­tor fuels in­to cir­cu­la­tion that do not ful­fil the eco­lo­gic­al re­quire­ments set out in Art­icle 35d para­graph 1 or 4, or provides false or in­com­plete in­form­a­tion in this re­gard;

u.¹⁸⁷

vi­ol­ates the pro­hib­i­tion set out in Art­icle 35d para­graph 2.

^1bis In ag­grav­at­ing cir­cum­stances, the pen­alty is a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty. Ag­grav­at­ing cir­cum­stances ex­ist if:

a.

the danger to people or the en­vir­on­ment caused by the of­fence is ser­i­ous;

b.

the of­fence is com­mit­ted on a com­mer­cial basis; or

c.

the of­fence is com­mit­ted by the of­fend­er as a mem­ber of a gang that has been formed for the pur­pose of re­peatedly com­mit­ting of­fences against this Act.¹⁸⁸

² If the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he or she shall be li­able to a mon­et­ary pen­alty not ex­ceed­ing 180 daily pen­alty units.¹⁸⁹

³ The FO­CBS shall pro­sec­ute and ad­ju­dic­ate of­fences un­der para­graph 1 let­ters t and u.¹⁹⁰

¹ A fine not ex­ceed­ing CHF 20,000 shall be im­posed on any per­son who wil­fully:¹⁹¹

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.¹⁹²

in­fringes the no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ments in con­nec­tion with waste (Art. 32b para. 2 and 3);

i.¹⁹³

in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on waste (Art. 30a let. a and c, 30b, 30c para. 3, 30d, 30h para. 1, 31b para. 3, 32a^bis, 32b para. 4 and 32e para. 1–2^bis);

j.¹⁹⁴

in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on re­source-con­serving con­struc­tion (Art. 35j para. 1);

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);

m^bis.¹⁹⁵

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 in­stall­a­tions¹⁹⁶ on the mar­ket (Art. 40);

o.

re­fuses to provide in­form­a­tion to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity or provides in­cor­rect in­form­a­tion (Art. 46);

p.¹⁹⁷

in­fringes the reg­u­la­tions on provid­ing a guar­an­tee for li­ab­il­ity (Art. 59b).