Every household in Germany has this one: the household waste bin.

I have been living the expat life for nearly 15 years.

Hope that helps . Sometimes the whole bin might be in a specific color, but most of the times you’ll only find the lid being colored. Unlike in most countries, where localities have a trash bin and a recycling bin, Germany has multiple colour-coded recycling bins to guide its citizens to sort the household garbage themselves. You can recycle them once again in supermarkets, where you´ll find machines with the PET-symbol. The containers should be rinsed before they are put in the bin, so that the recycling process can be a little easier. Paper recycling. Some wine bottles are 90% clear but 10% green. I could not find any official info on how to properly dispose of cat litter in Germany.

Hi.. Do you know if one should remove the plastic/metallic caps from the jam, coffee, deodorant bottles before throwing them into the white bottles bin? Do you mean the Nespresso plastic ones?

The glass must go into separate containers for whichever color the glass is: clear, green or brown.

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Learn all about German garbage disposal system in this article. The blue bins (or black bins with a blue lid) are common and surely you´ll find them in your house, too.

BOOK-BLUE BIN

If so, does this dirty wrapping newspaper go in the brown bio bin or the black bin? Usually, quite a lot of the stuff (if it’s not too old and ugly) will be collected by people driving around the streets and looking for reusable things or potential objects that will still bring some money on the flea market. That extra cost is called the pfand (deposit). Have a load of them and not sure what to do with them. The leftovers should I put directly or should I put in a plastic bag? Germany is even set to become the world champion of waste separation.

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I hope you will find some helpful insights if you are considering moving to Germany or already live here. Even though this infamous system for waste separation is so complex that at times Germans themselves cannot completely wrap their head around it.

For more information on recycling in Stuttgart, Germany, call 421-6134. The rate for municipal waste rose from 56% in 2002 to 67% in 2016. Most beer bottles can be returned for a small pfand at any big superstore with an automatic collection machine.

Which glass to recycle here: all glass bottles where you didn’t pay a deposit or Pfand, any kind of jars (mustard, jam etc), oil bottles, wine bottles etc.

If there is a yeöllow bin I think it should be fine to just throw the plastic in there but better not use another bag as that might have to be separated again.

You need to bring your stuff to the site for them to dispose of it in the proper manner.

I guess green is for glass at your home and yellow is the one for plastic.

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However, with a little routine one gets used to it. Alpine Industries 28 Gal. Sundays or late evening are not the recommended times to chuck out your bottles unless you fancy a good ol’ stare down by the nearby Germans.

Sometimes it can be difficult to adapt to new regulations and rules when you leave your country for another.

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