While recycling is the norm in many American households, the German people up the ante when it comes to recycling materials. In the United States it is estimated that 69% of what we throw out gets put into a landfill. In Germany, the estimation is far different; 62% of materials get recycled while 38% gets turned into energy from waste. While a small number of landfills in America have begun to turn materials into EfW, there is still a long way to go in order to match European countries such as Germany. In Berlin, you will find waste receptacles such as the one pictures above. There are areas for waste, paper, packaging (such as plastic), and glass. This takes the guess work out of what should be going in the recycling bins.
Another thing the Berliners take seriously is resource conservation. For example, plastic bags are not the norm. They are not given in most stores unless asked for and paid for. Provided above is an example of this in a grocery store. Groceries were not bagged and were simply pushed to the end of the till to be bagged by the consumer in a reusable bag, shown below.
As illustrated in the image below, bags were available to purchase alongside a warning about being conscience with bag usage. Another example of resource conservation is the deposit system that is used on bottles. What is commonly referred to as Pfand is the deposit that you pay on bottled drinks in Germany. To ensure that these bottles get reused and do not end up as litter on the streets, one can take the bottles back to any supermarket with a Pfandrückgabestelle (a return center for these bottles), and receive that Pfand deposit back. For glass or heavy plastics, this can be about €0.08 per bottle. For thinner plastics and cans it can be €0.25.
