Trash Talk about Recyclying

The German garbage collection and recycling system is legendary for its complexity and its, well, German way of enforcing things.

In every household, people have to separate their trash into, typically, four color-coded bins.

Blue bins or blue plastic bags are for paper.

Yellow bags are for containers and packaging (not paper packaging, not glass containers). Plastic bottles that have no deposit on them go here, too. Plastic bottles with deposit have to be returned at a store, which causes this issue: Fruit flies shut down space-age German tech.

Green bins are for organic, compostable waste (food scraps, yard waste).

Grey bins are for whatever is left over from that sorting job (except glass containers).

You take glass bottles and jars to collection points, where you put them into three containers for the three common colors of bottles and jars, that is, clear, brown, and green.

Batteries have no place in any of these containers. Any store that sells batteries is required to have a collection point for batteries, so you drop them off there.

Electric and electronic goods go to other places, again. You can pay to have stores take back bulky old washers, or you can schlepp them to collection points.

"Dangerous chemicals" have to be dropped off at collection points. These chemicals include paints, and solvents but also glues and foam sealants.

Enforcement of all of this is by inspection and weight. The blue and yellow bags are so thin that the contents are easily seen, and, of course, they break all the time.
Wind, rain, and sloppiness make for localized spills that show the reading preferences and eating choices of your neighbors.

If there is something in a bag that should not be there, it gets tagged, and you have to try again.

Unlike in Great Britain, for instance, where monetary disincentives (heavy fines) can bankrupt poor people.

Despite the effort asked from people who don't speak German, the system is reasonable enough. In the U.S., we had fewer bins but had to learn the different kinds of plastic and, for the longest time, we could put only plastic bottles into the recycling bin. All other plastic containers went into the "trash" bin.

Street festivals and markets around here are characterized by the absence of plastic dishes and styrofoam cups, which we really appreciate.

Some municipalities, including ours, are running free web sites for people to give away or trade stuff.

A three seater sofa on offer for a case of Coca Cola is quite practical.

But second hand clothing or thrift stores are rare and seem to be a recent phenomenon after decades of economy boom. Tucked away in the attics or basements of many small German town halls, you can find a second hand charity setup they call "Kleiderkammer" (chamber of clothing). A pair of quality jeans for 1 Euro is pretty cool, but the only Germans you typically see there are the volunteers who run the store and a few hapless folks on "basic means tested social benefits", the infamous Hartz IV.

They don't advertise, and there is quite a bit of social stigma attached to its use: you must be too poor to be able to afford new clothes.

Granted, even in the States, a lot of people would rather never be seen at the clothing equivalent to a candy store, as we jokingly called Goodwill, Thrift Town, and others like them.