Week 10: The Rainbow of German Recycling
[**Next week’s post (Week 11) is supposed to be published on Monday, 16. May, but instead it will be posted late on Tuesday, 17. May, due to my weekend in Vienna.]
As promised in many posts ago, here is my best explanation at how to properly throw away your trash and recycling in Germany (and a relatively short post). Now each city has their own variations so keep that in mind. This post is purely based on my experience within a Franken city in Bayern.
German recycling was something of a headache at the beginning of my time here. My tandem partner spoke quickly of 4-different trash cans that I needed and some things went in some colored bags and bleh. It was terribly frustrating at first. I still even have my little color coded paper sitting on my shelf by the trash just in case I forget what goes with what color. However, now that I’ve adjusted, I really like this system. It’s more efficient and a hell of a lot better for the environment.
But I say this after living here for 2 months. So here’s the basic rundown of how to separate your trash in Germany:
1. Green Trash Bag, Brown Bio Bin – Biodegradable Trash
This would include all of your food scraps, banana peels, apple cores, etc. Basically if it is organic material and rots, it goes in this bag.
2. Yellow Trash Bag, No Bin – Plastic
Wrappings around food, plastic on tech, etc. goes in this one. Make sure that you wash/rinse off things like plastic cheese containers, lunch meat containers, etc. before throwing it away. It has to be clean.
3. No Bag, Blue Bin – Paper & Cardboard
You can keep your paper and cardboard in a bag, but do not throw it away with the trash. You have to dump it out into the dumpster without the bag.
4. No Bag, Labeled Tan Bins – Clear, Green, & Brown Glass
Make sure you wash the glass out just like plastic trash. There should be some tan bins (typically) somewhere by your dormitory. Once you find it, throw the glass in its properly labeled bin. They separate it by clear, green, and brown glasses so just look at the labels before throwing the jars anywhere.
5. Clear Trash Bag, Restmüll Bin (typically blue & green) – Everything Else
Everything from used tissues and used feminine hygiene products to tape to used tea bags and things you just don’t know where to throw away go in here. The weird stuff. If you can’t easily put it in one of the other trash categories, it goes in here.
6. Cans, plastic bottles, and alcohol bottles can be returned to the grocery store they were bought from for nothing or a partial refund.
7. Clothing, Shoes, Furniture, & Others
Items like these (depending on how much you have) need to either a) be called in (for large amounts), b) be donated, or c) sold or given away.
For those of you like me who would prefer a list of where things should go, check out this article I found. He’s an expat now living in Germany with his German wife. He put together a pretty solid list of what things go where (because there will be some items you just go, “Wait a minute. That goes in with the plastic?” and he answers most of them).
This person also does a good job explaining the trash system in a little more detail as well and I highly recommend you at least skim through it.
When you’re in public, people don’t mind too much when you only have one public trash can available for different types of trash. However, if there is a public trash can that has its respective separations, separate your dang trash please.
I realize this is kind of short this week, but I’ve been really busy playing catch-up for the classes I slept through this past week and planning a couple of trips for this month. But if you can get anything from this post: Don’t be intimidated by the German trash system. You’ll get used to it and shrink your carbon footprint with it.
German Word of the Week: “Totschlagargument” (pronounced tote-schlog-argument) – Courtesy of Deutsche Welle this wonderful word literally means knockout/killer argument. Like have you ever had a discussion or debate or argument with someone and then you bring up the best point ever that basically wins you the argument? That’s exactly what this is! The killer argument that silences your opponent and gives you the “win”.
