By Dede Williams

Back in the day when most takeaway beverages came in cans, who pondered serving size or how often the container could be refilled before being relegated to the recycling bin?

It was one-size-fits-all, and there were no recycling bins. After a detour in the gutter, the dented metal ended up in a landfill. For a cool drink, one toted a thermos.

With the dawn of PET packaging in the 1990s, talk turned to the best way to take the water(s). How many trips might a bottle manage in its lifetime? Once and toss, or return-to-vendor? 

Though it has a reliable recycling infrastructure, Switzerland, land of sparkling water you can swim in, also has a simpler parallel universe for dealing with plastic bottles.

Related: The cap that binds – or, how to drink from a bottle

In many cities, astonished visitors from countries where few streetside fountains exist – or the output tastes like recycled toilet water – can watch and do what the locals do: stand on the banks of a lake and slake their thirst without getting their feet wet.

It’s BYOB. Pull that scrawny but sturdy piece of used PET out of the bag. Don’t dip it into the lake but hold it under the spout of a nearby drinking fountain – Lakeside Zurich’s is an art nouveau gem as well as a feat of Swiss engineering.

After the stream of cool alpine liquid tumbling steadily through an invisible pipe has filled the bottle, you’re good to go. As you walk away, thumb your nose at the stand offering bottled water for 5 Swiss francs. And ignore, for now, the nearly empty recycling bin waiting a few steps away.