Major exhibition on the subject of raw materials opens

A special exhibition about how we deal with raw materials opened at the Museum of Pre-History at number 15 Hofstrasse in the city last week.

How we go about with the world’s natural resources is very much a topical issue, especially in a canton such as Zug (of note was that none of the high profile companies trading in them was mentioned by name in this article).

As it was felt it was not so easy to find neutral and factual information on this topic, it was decided to set up this exhibition, which continues until Sunday 21 October.

As Christian Wirz-Töndury, head of the Hochschule Rapperswil and of the Zug-based Werz Institute, “a competence centre for energy and resource efficiency, commerce and the service sectors”, mentioned, among the features presented are the long-term effects of failing to use renewable sources of energy.

Other displays feature how raw materials are extracted from the earth and, in some cases, converted into metals. Then the financial aspects of trading in them also feature, as does recycling.

One exhibit, for example, shows a doll’s house depicting scenes of everyday life where energy could be saved. As Ulrike Kastrop, the head of the “focusTerra” project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who has also been involved with the exhibition, said, “We wanted to portray the complexity of the issues relating to raw materials and at the same time provoke visitors perhaps to change their attitudes towards them.”

Aspects of technology, the economy and geology have all been included in the exhibition; indeed, there is a display of different types of stone, too, all attractively exhibited.

As schools in Zug are particularly anxious pupils should be made aware of all the implications associated with raw materials, special documentation, though not in any admonishing way, has been drawn up for them, something which the director of culture and education in the canton, Stephan Schliess, was particularly pleased to see.

In addition to all the exhibits, various lectures by experts in their field are also to take place over the next few months.