Since today is the day for our "gelber sack" pick up, and I can hear the trucks going up and down the streets, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about recycling.
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| Our kitchen. Yes, it's tiny. And half of it is garbage. |
Germans are big on their recycling.
They might find it confusing, and even a little annoying, but they recycle!
We have a box for paper. We have a sack for plastic (it’s call the Gelber sack, or yellow sack, and it goes out twice a month). All plastic goes in here including packaging and many plastics that do not get recycled in the US. Plastic bottles, however, do not go in the Gelber sack. They go back to a grocery store, where you get 25 cents apiece for them!! Many people have composts, but we don’t because we live in an apartment. Glass bottles are divided by green, brown, and white and go in three separate containers you can find around town (they are not collected at the apartment). Everything else, whatever’s left, goes in “Restmull.” In two weeks, our restmull bag (a small grocery bag) has been filled to about half. You don’t realize how much of your waste is plastic packaging, until you are separating it aggressively.
That makes a grand total of six waste/recycling containers. So, when you see the picture of my kitchen full of trash, it’s not because I’m a slob, it’s because I’m a hard-core recycler!
When I moved to the States I found recycling options were poor - but the attitudes towards it was even worse. Parts of Canada divide their garbage - wet and dry. Honestly don't know the purpose behind this.
ReplyDeleteDo you find you now shop differently, knowing that you are now a "hard-core recycler"?
I'm shopping differently, but I don't know if it's for that reason. They seem to have the same amount of packaging when you buy pruducts, but since you buy just what you need for the day, you don't have to store as much, or use plastic bags or have as many leftovers. So that makes a difference!
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