What is a surefire way to get a quick introduction from your new neighbors in Germany? Throw cardboard packaging with your name and address on it into the garbage. They’ll bring it right back to you.
“In Germany, this does not go there!” they will explain and provide an equally expedited introduction to the intolerance Germans have for those who don’t separate and recycle waste items properly.
Growing up in the 1980s and ’90s in Canada, I couldn’t help but be conscious of environmental issues. The Three Rs popular to my generation were not as much Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmetic, but Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. From a very young age I recall my family having a “red box” or “blue box,” where all recyclables were to be thrown for weekly collection. And as a card-carrying member of the Kids for Saving Earth Club, I diligently complied.
Thus, when I moved from Canada to Germany as a young adult in 2007, never did I imagine my recycling skills would be so inept, or that my occasional confusion regarding what waste items went where and when could garner such distain from locals. The lessons awaiting me in my new home regarding proper waste management and overall concern for the environment (including animal welfare) would change the way I thought of ethical and sustainable living. Such lessons would then also make my later move on to Russia that much more challenging.
Learning to use Germany’s detailed municipal recycling system can be daunting for newcomers, especially for North Americans used to cramming all our recyclables into a single box or bag. For example, in Germany all glass bottles must be separated by color—brown, green, clear, and so on—and inserted one by one into large bins found on neighborhood street corners. Plastic bottle are to be returned to depots, located within grocery stores or as standalone businesses. And there are special bins in each home for biodegradable waste, which is picked up on regularly scheduled days. Where I lived near Düsseldorf, there were also designated cardboard pickup days, which required boxes and other cardboard to be broken down, tied with string and left on certain street corners (which would have been nice to know during that first week). This is all in addition to each municipality’s own system for recycling all the rest—cans, plastics, paper— done via household bins or special bags provided by the city.
To read the full story, visit http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2016/08/24/theres-a-bin-for-that-what-i-learned-about-recycling-in-germany/.