A Georgia Girl in Germany

I never thought I’d post a photo of our trash, but it is very relevant living in Germany. Why? Germans recycle. Yeah? So does everyone else, you say. No, Germans REALLY recycle -- as in, they recycle EVERYTHING. Biodegradable waste? It gets recycled and turned into compost. Anything from kitchen food scraps (except meat) such as coffee filters, tea bags and paper towels to lawn clippings and dead plants goes in the brown “bioabfälle” container.

Next category: “Gelbe Sack” for “light refraction” items. We have a huge roll of these “yellow bags” -- fortunately, they’re free and more were delivered to our doorstep last month so I didn’t have to search out the waste management office to get more. “Light refraction” is the catch-all of recycling since just about anything that can be recycled goes here: plastics, metals, juice/milk cartons, aluminum cans/foil, packing peanuts, Styrofoam, yogurt/butter containers, etc. Yup, it all gets heaped together in the yellow bags. This stuff eventually gets sorted by hand, so we have to rinse everything out before tossing it in the yellow bag.

As you can see from the photo at the right, my neighbor is much more adept at fully filling his yellow bags than I am. What container is that next to the yellow bags? That’s what the kids and I call “trash-trash” -- “restmüll.” Anything non-recyclable and non-hazardous goes in this tiny black container. This is the one category that actually doesn’t get recycled -- it is burned. If you have a child under 3 and still in diapers, you’re also authorized 26 “diaper trash bags” per year. Fortunately, all my kiddos are well past that stage! I couldn’t imagine having to keep diapers for up to two weeks before getting rid of them!

The easiest category is paper. The blue 240-liter containers are for clean paper, cardboard, heavy cardboard, newspapers, magazines, wrapping paper, books, etc. These are our containers at the left -- for a family of three or four. The containers below are my neighbor’s -- for a family of one or two. Notice how her black restmüll container has a slight hourglass shape to it? That’s because she can only fill beginning at the narrowest part of the container -- the bottom begins at that point. And, no, I have never filled our bioabfälle even a third of the way. My restmüll container easily holds only one 13-gallon trash bag, but I can squeeze and cram a second one in there if need be.

Now that I’ve explained everything, how often does all of this get picked up. Well, that depends. Yellow bags and restmüll get picked up together, every other week. Bioabfälle gets picked up every other week, on alternate weeks from yellow bags and restmüll. Paper and cardboard are picked up every four weeks, with restmüll. Yes, we have a chart to help us keep track of what goes out when. I’d be lost without it ... or either stuck with loads and loads of trash, er recycles, around the house.

Hmmm, it appears I’ve forgotten something. How, you ask, do we dispose of glass? That, my friends, is taken to a neighborhood glass recycling location where we must separate the glass into containers marked for the different colors of glass -- clear, brown and green. Oh, and there are rules for recycling glass too, specifically WHEN you can recycle glass. Since depositing the glass into the containers is noisy (from the glass shattering when it drops), we’re only allowed to deposit glass Monday through Saturday between 7 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., then again between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. I always seem to realize that we have a slew of glass to recycle on Sundays, so we inevitably end up with lots of glass to recycle at once when we finally make it to our neighborhood glass recycling location.

Why are Germans so adamant about recycling? Simple -- it’s the law. In 1991, Germany's minister of the environment declared waste a useful resource, and the German legislature approved a law making whoever places a package into commerce responsible for taking it back. Essentially, the Packaging Ordinance requires manufacturers or retailers to “take back” their packaging or ensure that 80% of it is collected rather than thrown out. Then 80% of what’s collected has to be reused or recycled. That translates into 12 million tons of material each year. Quite a significant impact for a country that, I’ve been told, has no more room in its landfills.

So, when I ask the kids to throw something away, it’s not uncommon for them to ask, “Which bag?” It’s a very legitimate question around here these days.

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This blog celebrated its third anniversary on Monday, and this post marks another milestone: 400 posts! Wow! I never imagined that I would have ever had that much to say, but it’s been awesome sharing our photos and stories here. I’m glad so many people keep checking in on us. As always, feel free to leave a comment so I know who’s checking us out. Here’s hoping for another 400+ posts in the years to come (although I’m easily 60-or-so behind just with travel posts -- keep checking back for updates, they’re coming soon, I promise!).

Labels: Germany, Pam's thoughts