i just finished cleaning up the common areas in the flat + my room (except for a wee corner i forgot! oops!); sorted out the trash...oh! didn't i say i was going to tell you about it???
well, there are at least 4 different bins in each German household, namely:
#1 biomüll == all bio-degradable things e.g. food waste...
#2 papier == paper...of course!
#3 gelbesack == packaging...plastics and recyclable materials go into the yellow bag
#4 restmüll == anything else that doesn't fit in the above categories... except e.g. batteries which go into special collecting boxes in supermarkets.
#5 old glasses either go back to the supermarket where you bought them for collection OR you have to bring them to the old glass containers in the neighbourhood.
most of the waste (paper/ recyclable stuff/restmüll) are usually stored in the cellar until collection day. the biomüll goes from the little container down to the big green bio-waste container outside, next to the building.
so that was it. it took me a while to get used to sorting my trash out... i wasn't sure what went where!! ...
the nice thing about the refuse system here is that companies play a big role in it too... they take part in both the creation and destruction of the products. what exactly is done is not clear... i.e. whether they pay for another service which dismantles the parts or ship the used products to a poor country (e.g. India, which many developed nations do) and let the poor sort out the trash.... i hope it is more of the former, than the latter... because there are some wastes e.g. television sets, pc parts e.g. monitor that carry very dangerous chemicals e.g. mercury... and people in the poor countries don't usually realise... we are a bunch of cruel consumers!!!
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