Before our current apartment, we always lived in high density areas where our trash was collected in dumpsters. So I am only now experiencing the true pressure of living in a pro-recycling country. Before, we separated paper, plastic, and glass (brown, green, clear), and took drink bottles back to the supermarket for refund, but down here in Laaber, we have (as seen below) a green trash can for paper and a gray one for trash. They are collected every two weeks. As you can see in the picture, our “trash” can is smaller than Charlie, significantly smaller. So JUST in disposing of Charlie’s hair and “business” (i.e., poop), it is already half full by the end of two weeks, unless Charlie’s hair is supposed to be sorted somewhere else. I suppose all of Charlie’s waste products could go in the composter (is that right?), but of the four composters in our garden, all are overflowing with rotten fruit from the fruit trees in our garden, so there is no room for more bio-stuff.
Charlie says, “Why does she want me sitting next to the trash cans? I’m confused!”So you’re probably thinking, what is she complaining about, there’s only two things to sort, but you’d be wrong. Three days a week, for a couple hours of each of those days, the Wertstoffhof (“recycling yard” or “potential resource depot”) is open. We must collect our “potential resource trash” separately and drive it to the depot. Here we have dumpsters for tetra-packs, tin cans (must be washed), plastic product packaging (must be washed), cardboard, glass (brown, green and clear), etc., and there are overseers who make sure you sort things correctly and that everything is clean (they are very strict about this point).
Our dilemma, if our trash can is full at two weeks now, how are we going to make it when we have baby diapers to dispose of??? Our neighbors informed us that with one kid it’s no problem, but when they had two in diapers, some weeks it got a little tough. Hmmm, we must be doing something wrong…
Anyways, I must now go outside and stick our trash cans in the garden shed because there is a super storm heading Germany’s way (link in German) that could have brief periods of hurricane force winds. Speaking of weather, are we skipping winter this year? I know I’m not a big fan of snow and freezing temperatures, but skipping winter altogether leaves me agitated (and my aunt just emailed me to say that it snowed last night in Malibu, California, resulting in the closing of a tunnel due to snow and icy conditions – she said it was enough for snowballs). Which reminds me, I just watched “An Inconvenient Truth” (the Davis Guggenheim/Al Gore movie) and found it incredibly depressing. Yeah right, it’s just a freak winter, these things happen sometimes, there’s no such thing as global warming! Watch the movie, people! And I’ll leave you with a funny excerpt from the Wikipedia article on the movie:
The Competitive Enterprise Institute ran two television advertisements to “counter global warming alarmism” in apparent reply to An Inconvenient Truth. Both used the tagline “Carbon Dioxide—They call it pollution; We call it life.”[41]
Comedian Jon Stewart mocked the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other critics of the movie on The Daily Show:[42]“Gore and a fringe group of radical liberals known as “scientists” believe that the earth is being damaged by man-made carbon dioxide. Well, bad mouth humanity all you want, but diss carbon dioxide and the Competitive Enterprise Institute is likely to open up a can of public service advertising on your ass [Institute's ads are shown onscreen]. I know what you’re driving at, but I really don’t think science and liberals are going to outlaw breathing.”
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Put Charley poop in the toilet and collect Charley hair for some eccentric old lady to weave into babygro’s? I know of people who do that with cat hair, so with Charley you could probably clothe the entire family.
And does the local council provide some kind of eco nappy/diaper service? When my friend had her baby in Central London, I think I’m right in saying that the local council provided, collected and cleaned their re-usable nappies/diapers. I will have to ask her. I think there may also be women’s environmental sites here and there providing that info.
Wow, that IS a pretty small trash can for two weeks worth of garbage considering all the diapers coming your way. They do have diaper services here, no idea what they cost though, but I know it’s not free. Wouldn’t recommend throwing the poop on the compost (carries disease) but the hair would be all right if there’s room for it.
We have to buy special garbage bags where we are so we can really have as much garbage as we like but we have to pay quite a bit for each bag so we try to be careful.
Hi, Christina,
I live in the Darmstadt area, so the same rules may not apply, but here’s how it is here:
dog-poop is not allowed in the bio can!!! The same goes for cat litter, and rabbit, hamster, or guinea pig poop. Poop belongs in the black can.
Hair, on the other hand, is allowed in the bio can.
Here, if you have 2 children under the age of 3 you get supplemental garbage bags for diapers. But with one child, you either have to make do with your garbage can, get a larger one (here we have 50, 80, 120, or 240 liters to choose from. Of course the larger they get the more expensive they are) or buy extra garbage bags (the same ones you get for free with 2 under-3 children). You can buy them at the Rathaus, I believe they can be filled with approx. 50 liters and cost around 8 or 8,50 Euros. You place these next to the black can on pick-up day.
Personally, I try to make it a point to not let my dog poop anywhere where I’m going to have to deal with disposing of it, but then again I live on the outskirts of a tiny village, so he only has to “hold it” for a few minutes before we’re in the middle of nowhere where it doesn’t matter if he does his business.
Don’t you have Gelber Sacks there? Here we have yellow plastic bags for tetra packs and plastic packagings. And a blue can for paper/cardboard.
Garbage separating is a drag, don’t forget to recycle corks, used batteries, and electric appliances!!
Anonymous-M.
P.S. in case I’ve thorougly confused you, that black can you have is probably a 50-liter can!
Anon-M.
Hi all and thanks for the comments. We have only the green paper products bin and the black can. Everything else needs to be driven to the recycling center. And there’s no bio waste collection here.
I figured Charlie poop couldn’t go in the compost pile. We do live on the edge of a small village (we’re the last house on our street), but we’re surrounded by farmland, so I don’t like to leave his poop in the fields. I just have him poop next to the trash can before we leave for our walk. It was actually easier in Potsdam when we had a national forest five minutes away where I didn’t mind letting his poop stay (as long as it wasn’t near a path).
I’ll have to look into the other options you guys listed. The Rathaus is just down the street, so hopefuly it’s no biggie to just pop in and ask them.
that is one confused looking charlie. he’s got personality, that one!
about global warming: mmh. no snow this year, because we had at least 10 °C for over a month now. if we were located in central africa, these temperatures would be regarded arctic, but since this is central europe, they are positively tropic to us.
Charlie is SUCH a babe. If I was a bitch… (and if you hadn’t had him done…)
I’m a recycling fanatic evangelist and can’t help giving my mother withering looks whenever I go to London and ask where such-and-such a piece of rubbish should go and she says, “Oh, just pop it in the bin”. The one bin. Although I think they’ve evolved to picking up paper and cans now.
@rita: Supposedly, winter is supposed to start next week, but I’ll only believe it when I see it
@BiB: He is a devilishly handsome Hund, is he not? It’s funny, I am much more gung-ho about recycling than Rainer is, and HE’S the German. He wanted to impose a minimum size limit on the stuff I put in the recycling bin to make it easier to sort (e.g., aluminum pudding lids go in the black can instead). I rejected that idea, of course