Bloody Germans

 Recycling

You see, the Germans also have another domestic conservatism going on; it occurs within their home waste disposal or garbage. In Britain, the closest we have to them are called, Bottle Banks; they are large covered metal containers that have several circular holes cut into it in which one can post in their empty bottles. Each hole, or sometimes each metal container, depicts the colour of the empty bottle that one intends to post -- a green bottle goes into the green hole, a brown into the brown, a clear bottle goes in a white hole.., and so on.

The main problem with this Bottle Bank idea, which in some towns and cities have also extended to aluminium-can banks, means one has to cart all their empties up to the local supermarket car park in order to dispose of them in a true conservationist or recycle minded way. Not many Brits are so inclined; they are either too lazy, ill or otherwise inconvenienced, or the recycle bottle and aluminium can banks are situated too far away. Or maybe they’re just plain embarrassed to inform everybody around how much they have drunk that week/day, with each guilty clink or crash from a sickening drop of fifty empty n’ crushed lager cans, eight clear gin and whiskey bottles, four assorted greens n’ blue wine’s.., and five more from light brown ales.

Oh.., and one lemonade bottle -- kids eh!

But the Germans go one better in this; they not only have Banks for their multicoloured bottles -- they also have them for paper, cardboard and.., well, that gooey horrible smelly stuff that most of Britain's rubbish bins end up containing. But not only do they have those waste disposal centres scattered around shopping car parks -- they’re practically all over the place along busy and quiet roads. But that’s still not all -- they will even have several different multi-coloured-multi waste purpose bins outside their own homes; one for paper, one for cardboard and another for the gooey horrible stuff. So it is already sorted for the different bin men to take to each separate waste disposal..,

Well.., at least that’s what they tell me..,

Even when the German goes shopping, they are thinking, conservatism; when they have purchased and taken their shopping from the cashier till, unlike the British, it doesn’t all go back into the shopping trolley -- then out to the luggage compartment of the car!

The German still has one more task to perform.

They will push their heavy laden shopping trolley over to another section within the store, where again, separate waste units are installed -- paper and cardboard (none for the gooey stuff this time). They will take their items out of the trolley and place them within the small allocated area on a large table, then go through them one by one. If they have bought a box of cornflakes or similar breakfast cereal -- they will open up the cereal packet, take out the inner packaging -- put the inner packaging into their shopping trolley, and post the now empty cornflake box in the cardboard waste unit.

I kid you not!

They will do the same with anything that contains an inner packaging -- a frozen pizza that has an inner polythene covering, a packet of biscuits or cake that again, has an inner packaging -- anything that has been wrapped twice, thrice or whatever times, will be stripped down to its underwear and it’s outer garments will be tossed into the correct or adequate waste unit -- paper or cardboard.

How many times have you been more exited by the wrappings than the product itself?

How many times has the boxed item looked larger than the inner goods themselves? 

By the time as the German has finished unwrapping their weeks shopping -- there hardly looks enough in their trolleys to feed a cat for the night! And it all looks so boring -- no colour whatsoever!

These waste units at food shops are busy all day -- they are always full to the brim when I see them and so must have to be replaced continually by the shop staff. They are then parked somewhere outside the back of the store.., to be collected later and then again, disposed in their own separate way..,

Or.., at least that’s what they keep telling me..,

You see, the reason I keep on repeating that last statement.., is because I have heard declared, and I cannot confirm if this is true or not.., but I have been enlightened by many, that although the German authorities have got their conservatism organised for the ordinary domestic German -- they haven’t yet quite figured it out properly for themselves..,

I have heard tell, that when the German waste disposal lorries pick up all of these separate and well organised bins, they take them away and dump the lot in the one same area -- right on top of each other; the blue and brown bottles altogether with the clear, the cardboard mixed in with the paper.., and the gooey stuff dumped right smack on top of the lot of it -- to hide it I suppose!

That sounds far more like the true German conservatism to me!

 Unwanted Items

The Germans also have another kind of conservatism or recycle plan, that I do commend -- and that is the recycling of old furniture and other household items.

In England, if you go out and buy yourself a new mattress -- what to do with the old one?

The bin man won’t take it for less than a hundred quid, or sex, and if you don’t own a car, are handicapped in some way, or are an old aged infirm pensioner -- you cannot carry it on your back for fifteen miles to the nearest council dump. Consider how more unfavourable the problem would be if you had replaced a three piece suite or large double sliding door wardrobe.

You could sneak around late at night looking for someone who’s hired a skip whilst renovating their house, and dump the mattress in there. Some do. Or you could, once again, in the dark wee small hours, carry it up to the local waste ground -- and lose it there. Many do.

 

Both of those last suggestions are totally illegal, so you would risk a heavy fine if you were caught. You could also set fire to it in your back garden, but a rubber foam mattress burning on a sunny day, blackening next doors washing -- again.., not a popular or very wise decision. So you’re stuck with it rotting away in your back garden, till nature runs its course and leaves you with just the rusty metal parts and springs, lying there forever unto eternity.

But not in Germany..,

For the Germans, the answer is quite simple and very logical too.

Whatever you buy new, you just take out the old and dump it outside on the street footpath.

And that’s it!

Forgotten.

What happens next, is some passer-by comes along and sees it and says..,

“Mmm.., dat vould look sehr good in my bedroom/hall/woodshed!’”

And they take it away.

Gone -- out of sight!

If not, and if what you dumped outside was really nothing but junk -- or an old mattress.., once a week, a lorry stalks by and picks up all the old furniture etc., that has been dumped outside each home -- and then takes it to a main recycle centre.

This centre is only for unwanted furniture items and not for waste household garbage of any kind. Members of the public can, if they wish, take their old furniture etc., up to this place themselves, should they not wish it to submerge the appearance of a few surrounding dahlias and a nice giant oak tree, that they have just newly planted alongside the footpath outside their homes.

At this recycle centre, whether you have taken your unwanted furniture up there yourself, or had it picked up for you, there will be people there on-site to receive and sort it; what is really junk and of no use to anybody -- will be crunched up and completely destroyed. But what is and looks in good order, will be taken away and parked inside a very large warehouse. Each day, within the week, members from the public, come to this large warehouse and view the unwanted items that have been stored there.

So if you happen to be a bit hard up, starting a new home or whatever; should you need a bed, a cupboard for the hall or a table for the kitchen, no matter what your needs -- somewhere, someday, up there at the recycle-centre, you might easily find it. And if you do -- you can take it away for free. The items that you can collect from these recycle units are not tatty old junk either; in fact, I have seen by far shoddier looking timeworn pieces on sale in many of England’s second-hand shops -- and they even have the gall to ask a high price for them!

In Britain, the closest they have to Germany's recycle centres, are town and city rubbish tips. These are waste areas that are open for the public to enter and ditch their unwanted items; old cookers, television sets, mattresses -- whatever, and dump it within carefully allocated sections.

But unlike Germany’s centres, the items that go to the British dumps -- are all rubbish and of no use to anybody -- despite the security up there being more vigilant than at Fort Knox.  If anything of use did finish up at the council tip, it would probably end up as a being a good perk for the guys who work there, to either keep for themselves or sell on.

Items that are in good order and still have a few years of use left in them; far too worthy to be thrown away, people will instead sell them on to the public through local advertisements, either in newspapers or by sticking up a for-sale card in a shop window. Otherwise, they will end up in one of Britain's many second-hand shops.

I might add in here, I do like the way the Germans put their for-sale or notices up on boards -- they have this neat trick of cutting several tassel-like strips at the bottom of their notice, in which they write their telephone number onto each easy-to-tearaway strip. So when an interested party wants to make contact, instead of having to search for that pen and paper, that one can never find when they need it most -- all they have to do is just tear off one of the strips with the telephone number already written out for them. It’s such a simple idea that I have never seen in England. These advertising sheets can even be bought in the German shops, in all sizes and with the tasselled strips already cut out for you.

Britain has always had an abundance of second-hand shops -- or Junkshops, as most like to call them.  Junkshops are not only popular with most folk, they can be just as much fun to simply walk around, even if you have no intention of making a purchase.  As a child, and even in my early teens, us kids were always going into, or getting thrown out of junkshops -- it was a big part of our Saturday fun!

The junkshops of Great Britain are often hideaway places only to be found in certain less select districts, mainly in run-down areas or up narrow back streets, but definitely not located in the more redeveloped modern shopping precincts and arcades. Even the more reputable antique shops are, more likely than not, to be located in the same areas as the second-hand junk shops -- often as close as right next door. 

I once knew this young man called Mick, he enjoyed going inside antique shops, though he was far away from being an antique dealer, or even the simple love a being a collector. 

He was more into it for the sheer fun!

Allow me to explain..,

Once when I was with him, he went into this top-quality antique shop and began looking around at all the fine furniture, brass lamps, vases and ornaments. Then the shop-owner hurriedly appeared on the scene. She was a posh elderly woman; probably as old as her stock. She adorned a mass of grey hair, that was pushed tightly up into a bun -- in a kind of school-ma’am fashion. Dangling at the tip of her nose, was a pair of elegant spectacles. She walked up to us with a welcoming, but sickly false smile, and said..,

“Can I help you?”

“Yes.., I am looking for an old kettle!” Mick answered delightfully, in a quick unrehearsed response.

“Well, we have this nice one over here.., and I think we have another, not so large, in the shop window...!

”

The kettles she referred to, were both a mixture of highly polished brass and dark copper -- they were very decorative and exquisitely ornate.

“No.., I was thinking more of one with a long wire attached to it so that I could plug into my electric socket -- I had one like those before.., the kind you just filled with water, then stuck on top of the gas ring -- only mine was better than them, because it had a whistle on the spout -- it used to let you know when it was boiling!”

By now, I had sussed out that he was having some fun, but for some strange reason, the shop woman had not seen it herself. I tried hard to keep a straight face, many times, when I felt I was losing control, I had to quickly turn around and feign viewing her wares.

But this guy was good -- he kept a straight face right through and gave an impression that  he was serious with his business -- to me, he was good enough to join the team on television's Candid Camera.

“No, we don’t have anything like that in stock -- we only have this type here.” She announced to him sadly. “They’re quite old and would make a very nice ornament.”

“Oh that’s a pity --  I was looking for something a bit more modern and practical -- I’ve been all over the place trying to find a good kettle -- perhaps I could use an old pot like this!”

He had picked up an elaborate plant pot.

“Have you tried down the road, next to the newspaper shop -- they hold a very large stock inside there?”

“Yes I’ve been in there -- but they told me I should come up this way and look in all the junk shops!”

The penny finally dropped..,

“This is not a junk shop -- this is an antique shop -- we don’t sell junk!!!”

I was out of there pretty quick -- and he soon followed behind me!

But it is very rare to find a second-hand or junk shop in Germany, though I have seen one or two selling second-hand records, CD’s and a few other choice electrical items; things that are often as good as new -- the majority of objects that I have seen in England's second-hand shops, are so tatty, they wouldn’t even make it to the warehouse at the German recycle centre -- they would be squashed up long before by the unit workers.

Everything but -- no., even the kitchen sink can be found at one of Germany’s recycle centres, and there are many of them scattered about throughout each city -- so one can tour around for that free new sofa. Germany has no need for second-hand shops with these recycle places about, and they are a blessing to the poor -- especially for the many asylum seekers that Germany takes in from the East. You could literally furnish you empty home, after several visits to a recycle centre.

Outside, and on route to them, whether dumping or collecting -- several vans are parked along the way and the people who own them (rarely German) ask you if you have any old electrical appliances; an old television, stereo, whatever., if you do, then they offer to take it off your hands to kindly relieve you from having to dump it yourself.

But beware of these people, because the following weekend, you’ll see your old television -- the one that you tried to repair yourself but instead turned it into a lethal weapon -- you’ll come across it again up at the Flohmarkt (flea-market), unchecked and just as you last saw it, but bearing a price tag for sixty Deutschmarks.

In Germany, nobody in their right mind would risk buying any second-hand electrical article from a Flohmarkt -- it could end up being their last purchase!