Recycling in Germany

Something that Manolo Mejía, Jacobo Durán and Tomás Gómez learned during their academic trip in Klasse 10, was how important recycling is for Germans. They were surprised to see how careful people were with waste and how their host families rigorously separated residues. The German recycling system is organized through the use of different colored containers. Each one indicates the type of residues that it can hold. Yellow is for any type of packaging, blue for paper and cardboard, brown or green for biodegradable waste, and black and gray for non-recyclable waste. Most cities also have containers for used clothes and shoes that are later picked up by charitable organizations. There are three types of containers that can hold glass: white for transparent glass, brown for brown glass, and green for blue, yellow, and green glass. 

It was also interesting for them to see how Germans gather plastic bottles to later deposit them in special containers. “For every bottle you return, you get 25 cents back”, they say. Likewise, they also noticed that disposing waste in the street or in the wrong container can be a reason for a fine. On the other hand, everybody at home must use specific bags according to the type of waste. They must also wait until the specific day in which programmed pick-up has been scheduled because recyclable and non-recyclable waste are not picked up at the same time.