Restmull, Altapapier, and Bio--OH MY!

If you don't understand what three of the words in this blog post's title mean, you are not alone: neither did we at first!!  In Germany, there is not just one bin for garbage and one bin for recycling like we are accustomed to in the States.  Garbage and recycling must be sorted into many different categories by the home owner (or in our case, the renters). This is the first year that military members who live off-post are fully following the German garbage system.  In the past, military members were allowed to bring their garbage on post without sorting it, American style.  Starting this year, that is no longer allowed.  Although it is more work for us, I think it is only right that those who choose to live off-post follow the rules and customs of life out in town.

Anyways, back to restmull, bio, and altpapier.  We have three large bins down at the street level for these three types of waste.

Restmull (black bin) = what we would think of as normal trash: dirty napkins, diapers, etc.

Bio (green bin) = organic material: food scraps, grass clippings, weeds (No, there is no disposal in the sink!)

Altpapier (blue bin) = paper, cardboard, cereal boxes, etc.

Here is a picture that gives more detail about what can and can't go in these bins:

The unusual part about garbage pick up is that it is on a rotating schedule.  All 3 bins do not get picked up on the same day. In fact, they each only get picked up twice a month!  That is a long time in-between pick ups!  Our Restmull bin fills up quite quickly and if we don't want to have garbage bags sitting in our house, we have to be more environmentally conscious!  During one of the first days we were in our house, I was using paper towels to clean the kitchen cabinets and counters.  As I saw my pile of used paper towels grow, I thought about our Restmull bin and realized I should switch to using a rag instead!  

OK, so that's garbage pickup.  You might think that is it, but there's more!  Since only paper is picked up directly at our house, all other recyclables must be taken to the "Werstoffhof," which is a recycling drop off center.  Our wonderful German neighbor, Andrea, offered to take Drew and me there to show us how to sort all of our recyclables.  

Drew had a ball.  Since he is shorter than us, he really had to chuck the cartons and bottles into each dumpster, which made it even more fun for him.  :)  We were able to sort everything really quickly between the three of us, which was great because I had a lot to recycle after 3 weeks of living in our house!

Plastic bottles

There are men working there who supervise the drop off.  They have a long pole with a grabber thing on the end and if you throw something in the wrong bin by mistake, they pluck it out of the bin.  They were friendly and smiled at me (silly tourist!) as I snapped a few photos. :)

Cans (soup, beans, etc.--not pop cans (those go in "Aluminum")

We can recycle plastic bottles at the Werstoffhof, but if we want to receive money back for them, we can take them to the local supermarket and put them in the bottle machine.

Recycling bottles at the Lidl supermarket

The machine would only take about 6 of our bottles or so (the ones I bought on base were spit back at us), but we earned about 2.75 Euro.  Not bad!

This whole garbage system seemed very overwhelming when we first moved in.  Now that I know how and where to sort our recyclables, I don't think it is going to be as difficult to manage.  The hardest part so far has been figuring out where to do our sorting.  Do we keep 4-5 different bins in the kitchen where we do most of our throwing away?  Do we keep some bins in the laundry room downstairs and bring a load down each day until I get to the recycling center?  It is a work in progress figuring out the best system.  

Thanks for reading and next time you toss something in the garbage, maybe you'll think of us at the Werstoffhof in Germany! :)