CityScapes Blog

Welcome to the Goethe-Institut CityScapes Blog.

12 cities
36 artists
12 themes

From January through December 2011, these were the parameters for a playground of diverse, fascinating, vibrant tales: Responding individually to a collective impetus, a host of hand-picked young bloggers uploaded photos, texts, and multimedia. Every month, they were given a new theme. Step by step, they created a kaleidoscope of impressions, opinions, ideas and… plain fun.

This project has now ended. If you like what you see, you may want to check out the brand new
CityTales Comic Blog.

CityScapes Blogger

Text Blogger

Photo Blogger

Multimedia Blogger

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This project was coordinated and moderated by Goethe-Institut Australia

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For more information and monthly articles highlighting some blog entries, please visit:

Goethe-Institut Australia
CityScapes Blog

Friday, April 15. 2011

Germany: Recycling World Champions!

My parents were visiting. Dad was talking football and mentioned “Arsenal”. A homeless guy, pushing a trolley, thought he’d said “arsehole” and yelled back “Arschloch”, hurling a bottle at us. It missed. But I think he was aiming for the recycling bins behind us!

The Germans have been hardcore recyclers since the 90s. It’s even regulated by public law. And they’re good at telling you how to do it! A neighbour recently knocked on the door telling me to break up boxes, before throwing them into the designated bin. She’d found a letter addressed to me in one of them. (She’d been going through the rubbish, which is embarrassing!)

I’ve been told the Dutch are even more anal than the Germans. An Australian mate of mine had just moved to Amsterdam, when his landlord let himself into his apartment during the day, dumping all of the garbage he hadn’t separated. He said it stunk when he got home that night.

You have to admit, the system here takes a while to get used to!

Blue bin: paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines
Yellow bin: plastic, metal
Grey bin: household waste
Brown bin: organic waste
Glass: return bottles with a deposit to the supermarket - other glass goes in the white, green, or brown bins
Batteries: special box at the supermarket
Electrical equipment: return to an appliance store
Furniture: street pick-ups
Donation bin: clothes, shoes

If you get through that long list and still don't know what to do with it, sell it at the local “Trödelmarkt” or flea market.

By Ben Fajzullin

Posted by

Ben Fajzullin

in Berlin at 20:01 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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Hehe, so true... In fact I find myself keeping all old batteries here in Saigon, because I do not know where to throw them. That's how deep recycling is in us Germans

#1 Christian Berg (Homepage) on 2011-04-16 18:18 (Reply)

That's funny - I was told Germans working abroad have the recycling system so ingrained in them, they can't bring themselves to throw old paper & glass into a normal bin. Instead, they stack it up in the corner of the office.

#1.1 Ben Fajzullin (Homepage) on 2011-04-22 01:23 (Reply)

Hey Ben, we also have this huge room in the ground floor with almost ten bins and when I first came here, I was quite scared someone could watch me when I was separating my waste as I really didn't know what to put in where. Now it's better. I do even enjoy being part of the world champion recycling team

It's a good thing after all.

#2 Max (Homepage) on 2011-04-19 10:50 (Reply)

Hey all, spot on! It could be said that we (Germans) base a large part of our identity on the fact that we recylce rubbish in intricate ways unheard of in other cultures. Therefore, it's only natural we're at a loss if we can't do it overseas.

#3 Jochen (Homepage) on 2011-05-03 08:15 (Reply)

Hi Ben, I am a fellow aussie writer & event presenter here in Berlin, just came across your blog entries for Goethe's cityscapes project.
Re Recycling, I have developed guilt pangs when I forget to separate the tiniest of the tiniest plastic coverings from general rubbish. But the Bio läden are bad culprits, everything is plastic wrapped there!
Hope to meet you one day at an event here in Berlin,
Petra

#4 Petra Zlatevska (Homepage) on 2011-07-11 14:27 (Reply)

I'm sure we'll bump into each other some time soon. This city really isn't that big. I'm hardly ever in Mitte though these days. Hope you don't live on Rosenthaler Platz like all the other Aussies!!! LOL

#4.1 Anonymous on 2011-09-14 23:25 (Reply)

Theme of the Month

DEC: Rites & Rituals

NOV: Jam it!

OCT: High Heels & Tight Jeans

SEP: Cents & Sensibilities

AUG: Green Issues

JUL: Culture and my City

JUN: Us and Them

MAY: Built up?

APR: Bin it!

MAR: Sex in my City

FEB: Going Local!

JAN: My Year in the City

CityScapes @ APUF

In June 2011, a selection of CityScapes bloggers attended the Asia-Pacific Urban Forum (APUF) in Bangkok, reporting live for the UN through CityScapes.

CLICK HERE to read, see, and watch what was happening behind the scenes at this conference.