Sorting rubbish / Mülltrennung

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This is a partial answer to a topic that has sometimes cropped up in the comments, here for instance. This was posted after I put something like boiled potatoes in the green bin. Usually, if in doubt (as in the case of meat), I look at the Fürth website, and there it says Essensreste (remains of meals) are OK. The worst (and only other) occasion was when I got a highlighted flyer pushed under my door. I don’t mind being corrected – well, I do really – but I don’t like to think that if there are brown paper bags from eight flats and a shop in the green bin, someone recognizes which is mine.

Hence the query: who else uses the rubbish bins in the street for private refuse, to avoid detection ? And what euphemistic term could one give that –
Fremdentsorgung?

Here’s the list of what goes in the green bin, from the website of the city of Fürth:

Küchenabfälle:
Obst- und Gemüseabfälle,
Kaffeefilter und Teeblätter
Essensreste
Gartenabfälle:
Grasschnitt, Laub
Schnittblumen
Heckenschnitt
Zimmerpflanzen
Sonstige kompostierbare Abfälle:
Kleintierstreu, -mist aus
Stroh, Heu, Holzspänen

14 thoughts on “Sorting rubbish / Mülltrennung

  1. I can tell you for a fact and from bitter experience after assisting my elderly hausmeister to remove a frying pan placed in the biotonne by persons unknown that bits of stale bread, eggshells, garden waste and rotting bits of carrot + other miscellaneous rotting, putrid, smelly veggies also attract, cats, rats and other vermin, including huge insects and flies. These people don’t have a clue …. my tropical fish do take delight in the big juicy maggots that also congregate around our biotonne though…

  2. Here you can see what I can put in my biotonne Margaret:

    As you can see, no mention of bones or body parts … so they also get pride of place in mine (bones, after my dog has had a go at them at least). I would imagine that wholesome extra maggots would be most welcome as they give that extra boost to the rotting process and add a touch of reality. They also frighten some folks off from opening the lid so they won’t be tempted unnecessarily to put their defunct vacuum cleaners or TVs in the bin and would much prefer to hide them in the restm

  3. Paul: thanks. It’s true, there’s often stuff in the bin that will not rot till after the bin itself.
    Now there’s no charge to deliver Elektroschrott, I have no problem with taking that to the dump. My problem is that someone in the house supervises all the rubbish carefully, so if I want to get rid of anything private it either has to go to the dump or in someone else’s bin!

  4. The systems awfully complicated, isn’t it? No-one I’ve asked knows where to put Q-tips/cotton buds. They think it’s the yellow sack, as they’re mainly plastic. And what about cigarette ends? I’d say that out of the people I’ve asked there’s a 50-50 split between the yellow sack and the Restm

  5. Forgive my missing apostrophe there! (System’s)

    Most people I’ve asked seem to go for midnight runs to litter bins with rubbish they’re unsure of. They’ve all warned me to make sure there’s nothing to identify you, such as your name or address.

    I’ve noticed that litter bins here seem to get a lot of use, with a lot of their contents bundled into small plastic bags – taken there from people’s homes, I presume.

    The ground near litter bins often has its fair share of rubbish in plastic bags, too, I’ve noticed. Not so much at bus-stops, but more the litter bins in parks, for instance. Either there’s a lot of litter being discarded, or there’s a lot of household waste. I suspect the latter.

    Something should be done about the system if it’s too difficult or too badly explained for so many people to feel they have no other choice.

  6. I presume there are differences depending on what the town can handle. You should get a list for what goes in the yellow sack, possibly printed on the sack itself. I cannot believe that cigarette ends go in there. Everything goes in the Restm

  7. Actually, I think the reason for a lot of “Fremdentsorgung” (Margaret’s term) is that a lot of folks can’t actually afford the overpriced charges for collection of their own waste – so they dump it in somebody else’s bin. I guess that’s marginally better than dumping it out on fields and in beauty spots (really gets my goat).
    Margaret:
    Do URLs in messages automatically get suppressed or did you delete the link to the Landkreis BB Abfallwirtschaft website? Just wondering….
    I don’t know about other parts of the country, but do others notice the increasing amount of plastic waste bags being dumped on motorways and at motorway exits? I notice about one new one every day here? Does it happen in the UK to his extent?

    Paul

  8. Paul: have a look at your earlier comment and the word “here”, which is now blue. I have attached your link to that. Of course, I can leave it readable too. Do you think it is confusing for someone who reads the comment for the first time?
    You can use html to make a link clickable.

    Yes, I forgot to mention the price. We can have as much yellow-sack stuff taken as we like even outside the bins, but when the blue Altpapier bin is full, I have to take my paper to the dump. Same goes for Restm

  9. I guess we have things a bit better here in Ehningen Margaret, as far as waste paper goes. It gets collected once a month by boy scouts/girl guides wearing heavily “health&safetied” luminous jackets and volunteers using farm tractors and trailers.
    Strangely we don’t have these infamous yellow sacks here (whereas Stuttgart does) so most plastics tend to get hidden in bigger containers and dumped in the restm

  10. Paul, I envy you the Altpapier solution. And I remember my friend in Donzdorf also has no yellow sacks. Presumably that’s pure honesty, as I think not everywhere that recycles at the outset recycles to the end.
    I definitely miss those Sperrm

  11. OK, I was being tongue-in-cheek.

    The situation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is really bad for the Rom people, as I’ve witnessed first-hand, and so I think it’s good for them if they can manage to get away.

    I recognise that it wasn’t PC of me to use the word ‘gypsy’, and I hang my head in shame. It was meant as humour, but I suppose it’s now out-dated to use that term.

    It wasn’t intended maliciously, though. I just thought it amusing that part of the recycling system appears to depend on the presence of people who’ll take unwanted items off your hands.

    Are there so many people of Slovak origin that it makes a difference, do you think? Without them, would there be much more visible tipping?

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