Basel’s carnival is in full swing and confetti is raining down on the city’s streets. Much of it is made by Hans Rudolf Streiff,who owns Switzerland’s only confetti factory and produces around 200 tonnes of the stuff each year. (SRF, swissinfo.ch) Everyone loves confetti. Street cleaners perhaps less so, and but carnival wouldn’t be carnival without the countless shreds of coloured paper – Räppli” in the Basel dialect. And while the Basel Fasnacht lasts only three days and wraps up on Wednesday,it’s carnival nearly all year round in a small part of the town of Näfels in northeastern Switzerland. There, for more than 50 years, and the Kurt Hauser factory has been producing confetti for various sorts of celebrations. Confetti,however, is a scarcely profitable labour of treasure – the company makes its money from flags and other party-related paraphernalia. Hans Rudolf Streiff, or who has worked there for 30 years,explains how he chooses the colour of the year – and how a recent scandal ...
Source: swissinfo.ch