The Science of Garbage

An American who arrives in Germany and is going through the top one hundred things of importance....eventually comes to prioritize the act of garbage as one of the top ten things that is difficult to grasp.  I'm trying to say it in a nice way....if some of you Germans take offensive here.

Years ago....Germans got all technical about recycling and handling garbage.  Recycling....is MANDATORY, and you will play the game correctly.  In almost every community, you get a little booklet toward the end of December or very early January....which lays out garbage pick-up for the whole next year, and it'll lay out typically twelve pages of general rules.

Bio-garbage is mandatory, unless you have a bin in the backyard where you compost everything.  Note, you can't usually put any citrus items in the bio....but you can put leaves, grass trimmings, vegetables left over from the refrigerator, etc.  You can dump coffee grounds into it, but not T-bone steak bones.  Typically, they come for your bio-can every three to four weeks....which means that your bio-can is pretty stinky and you usually can't stand to open the top cover.

The paper can (another totally separate device) is usually big enough to handle all the paper that a German family might accumulate in an average three to four week period.  For an American family....it probably does barely cover what they toss into the can.  Don't ask me why.....Americans seem to pick up more paper items than the normal German.  Everything....even the box that the new TV came in....must go to the paper can.  This means you have to smash everything flat and make it all fit.

The plastic garbage?  From state to state, it's a bit different.  Some states have a full-up can out front of the house, that you pay for as part of your garbage fees....and you dump all plastic into it.  Course, if there's some messy stuff on it....you are supposed to wash the item....before placing it into the can.  Some states mandate yellow plastic bags...which you dump your daily plastic collection into....there in the kitchen.  Some delivered item has paper and plastic?  Well....you should remove the plastic, for the plastic can....and put the paper in the paper can.

An old bookcase or old shovel?  Well....there's supposed to be a twice a year collection in each community.  You drag out old bulky stuff....putting it by the road or street, and the truck comes up.  You would notice the date of this in that little booklet that comes in late December.  Some states have dumped the twice-a-year schedule, and just say you can call to set up a reservation, with the truck coming by just for you.

Glass?  Beer bottles are simple....they go back to the store to get your deposit back.  Wine bottles are different...you usually tote those to the village site where a brown steel container sits.  There will be some identification that only green bottles go in this side of the container, and brown bottles in this other side, and see-through bottles in another side.

Regular garbage?  Well....yeah, there is a remaining can out front for it.  But it's a pretty small can if this is for just a two-person apartment.  So you end up being fairly picky about what goes to the regular garbage can.

Batteries?  They can't go to any can.....you end up toting those to some special location in your community to dump in a big container.  It might be at the local grocery, or somewhere on the outskirts of your village....but batteries are kinda special.

TVs or monitors?  You got to run down to the local county dump, where they have a big dumpster and toss it into that.  You will discover while visiting this county dump....various containers.  Some for refrigerators, washers and dryers.  Some for old furniture, etc.

Soda bottles?  Well.....the Germans eventually got around to mandating that they have to be recycled, but they even made this as difficult as possible.  Every single soda container....even cans....has a deposit.  So you end up at the local grocery where you hand back your items....to get your deposit back.  If you notice....buying a soda in a can these days in Germany isn't that simple.  Most all sodas come in a plastic bottle of sorts.

Garbage inspectors?  Well...yeah, the bigger communities have gotten around to inspectors who walk and check your garbage can on the day they are supposed to pick it up.  They can put a letter on top....declining your garbage, which creates a huge problem for you if they fail to pick it up.  This typically comes because they find coffee grounds in your regular garbage, fair amounts of paper in the regular garbage can, or batteries in the regular garbage can.  The sad thing is that smaller communities are hiring up garbage inspectors now....so you will eventually face them on a weekly basis.

Taking things to the extreme?  Well...after a while, you do understand the German mentality, but it's the fine details of this which tend to make you shake your head.  Every year, there is a tweak to the system, and something added to some special category.  Eventually, I suspect that ink pens won't be allowed in regular garbage, light bulbs will be extra special, and old telephone books will have to be handled at a special bin at the end of your village.  There is no end to the science of German garbage.

So my advice is this if you suddenly arrive and find this vast technical situation over garbage....sit down and analyze the stupid booklet you get in December.  Draw up a plan to remind of these divisions of garbage.  Make sure the kids play by the stupid rules too.  And do your best to act "German".  Don't worry, you will fail throughout the first, second and third years....but your German neighbors will come to help remind you that you've screwed up.  It's all part of the German mentality ...you need to get smart and pay by the rules....end of the story.

The Swimming Question

This is an odd story to introduce to an American...on Germany.  First, German states sit down and write up what they want to mandate for education.  To be honest, there's not much difference from state to state (16 total states).  Some states might emphasize more languages than the norm (like Chinese, Polish, Dutch).  Some states might endorse more religious instruction for folks for one particular year out of a kid's life than others.  And some states might mandate swimming as mandatory, with no opt-out option.

It came around in the Frankfurt region....that some Islamic young lady (twelve years old) just plain wasn't going to participate in the swimming episode because her religion forbid her from seeing young men in a topless situation.  Yes, men in a topless situation.  You see, Frankfurt's rule is that you must participate in swimming classes, in a joint atmosphere....young men and women.  So you'd take a class of twenty....toss them into a 90-minute class once a week for physical education....swimming...and they'd all be certified as swimmers by the end of the first semester.

The state apparently went down the rules....because Frankfurt has a fair number of Muslim young ladies. You have no choice but to be in a public school and participate in the various mandated classes.  You can wear a full-body suit...."burkini" would be the term to use for this....and avoid any display of your body except your face, hands and feet.  Bottom line....you will participate....by state rules.  The court came out, and said that was the final deal....no exceptions.

The only option left for the young lady and her family.....is to just say you are sick and avoid this class when it comes up.  That means you get a "zero" for the whole class.....failure.  When the end of the school year comes.....you can generally only afford one or two failures, or repeat the entire school year.  This is a fair risk for a kid.

So, you kinda stand and look over the situation.  You've got a growing number of Muslims who have arrived in Germany....falling into the local Islamic community....and trying to test the Germans at every angle to accept more Islamic rules into German society....pure and simple.  You lived in a perfect Muslim society before, where everything was absolute and pure Muslim.....and apparently, you were unhappy.  So you moved to a non-Muslim society....and brought your anchor with you.  Now, you expect things to fall back into that perfect Muslim society, and eventually.....be just as negative or unhappy as it was before.  Course, you never think much about why things got screwed up in the old country....they just were screwed up.

It's hard to see how a Muslim could ever put himself into the position of moving to such an advanced country like Germany.  Boobs might be flashed on TV.  Relationship discussions occur nightly on some news talk show.  There might be offensive posters on the bus or subway car each day they travel to work.  There's probably three hundred things on a daily basis that challenges a Muslim to stay on a straight and narrow path.  Why would any true Muslim stand up and leave a perfect atmosphere in a Muslim country....to be tested on a daily basis in Germany?  If you toss this at a German Muslim....they'd probably just stand there and stare at you.  They can't answer this.

My guess is that this young lady will skip the swimming class....get a full failure, and if she has a second class that comes close to failure....repeats the entire school year next year.  Maybe she's lucky....makes it, and never has to do another swimming class ever again.  Maybe twenty years down the road....her car runs off the road into some lake.....and she quietly drowns because she couldn't swim out of the lake to safety.  Stranger things have happen.

Just another odd day in Germany.

German Junk Food

An American can run into an interesting discussion item when the topic of junk food comes up with a German.  The conversation will typically lead off with all the various terrible junk food available in America.  The weight and size of Americans will fall into place quickly.  It'll seem like a one-side conversation for several minutes, and then you might casually ask....if Germans have junk food?  There's going to be this pause, and your associate will say 'yes' but not nearly the amount as Americans have.

So, you walk around in grocery stores in your German village or town, and then begin to build a list of German junk food.  There's usually sixty different types of chips at your normal big-name German grocery, with various flavors.  There's probably over one hundred different cookie options in your local German grocery, all loaded with calories.  McDonalds and Burger King?  Almost every town of 10k residents in Germany....now has a McDonalds, and Burger King keeps on expanding as well.  After a while, you kinda realize that junk food is pretty much at the same level in Germany.  Your associate may not like to admit that.....but it's truth.

The various bad health issues that Americans have?  Well....Germans might be a decade behind....but if you walk around and gaze at what folks eat while on the go....they are progressing toward the same health issues.  German kids are in the same boat as American kids.

Walk into any German train station, and gaze at the folks waiting for a train.  One out of ten are probably drinking a Coke, or eating some chips they bought out of the machine.

The junk food topic may start off down a one-way street....but the facts may invite more discussion.  Germans end up facing a moment of shock....that they might living on the same junk food level as Americans.

Bakeries on the Spiral

There's an interesting story out there....over the future of German bakeries.  The German Wholesale Bakeries association says that they are seeing a trend, and expect a drop of thirty to forty percent of bakeries.  It's not that they are unnecessary....it's just that you see an increase in bulk bakeries, which produce products for the smaller shops and stores throughout the country.

Years and years ago....every neighborhood and small town had its own bakery.  They made fresh bread six days a week, and prepared some great deserts which were the Sunday treat.  The small bakeries have met their match with these bulk bakeries, which can employ dozens of people and provide morning delivery to a hundred groceries across the region.  Mass production is taking on a major target.

Comparable?  No.  I've enjoyed small bakery products in Germany for years, and admit you just can't find anything better.  The bulk products?  About half as good, but cheaper than what the smaller bakeries can produce.

It's a trend that you know is happening and you can't stop it.  At some point in forty years, folks will talk about the great smell and taste of fresh baked croissant from the neighborhood bakery, which shut down years ago.  The bulk product that they buy?  It just doesn't have the same texture.

The statistic I find most interesting out of the various stories on the decline....is that they are around fourteen thousand bakeries in Germany today, which serve eighty million residents.  By the 2020 period, it's believed it'll be near eight thousand bakeries (from the Local.de).  Some bread will be trucked for an hour or two.....to be delivered to some small village of five hundred residents.

History will have been made.....sadly.

The New Women on the Board

It is an interesting turn of business management by the German Parliament.....a mandated position that the top thirty companies listed on the DAX.....must have forty percent of the board as women, period.  Not a recommendation, but a mandated situation.

There are two views to this.  First, most folks will admit that it's been a "boys club" for years in upper management, so this is a fair way of finally forcing the issue, via the Bundestag.  Second, some business analysts view this as something that the Bundestag shouldn't be getting into.....the mandate of who sits on boards of major German business organizations.

Who make up the thirty companies on the DAX?  Deutsche Bank, BMW, Siemens, E.ON, SAP, MAN, Heidelberg Cement, Volkswagen, RWE, Daimler, and BASF.....among the very top of the group.  The effect?  Well....no one is saying much on the business news area, but I'm guessing most companies will have to review the structure of their board....and look for a couple of women who have been within the company for twenty years....then hope that they fit well within the board.

For the women involved.....it might be more of a negative than a positive.  You get a move-up-to-the-top ticket, free of charge.  But there's bound to be more observation of your attitude and performance than you'd normally expect.  I'm guessing here....strictly on my own humble opinion....that half of the women promoted out of the initial group....will be resigning or retiring within two to three years.  The women who come up in a decade might face an easier crowd and appreciate what was done this week.

That Forest Kid

If you remember back about six months ago....there was this story in Germany of this kid who suddenly appeared in the Berlin area....claiming he had been living in the woods for years and years with his dad, when dad died.  So he'd come out of the woods.  He didn't know much of anything from his past.  The problem was.....he didn't really have that great of an ability with the German language, and none of his story really seemed true.

So months passed while he was in social care, and then they found out that he was simply a run-away kid from the Netherlands.

Well....the Germans have decided that there's some cost involved in this whole game....way over thirty thousand Euro, and they want the kid to pay up.  The kid?  Well....it's a funny thing....he's disappeared.

So the Forest Kid....as he is referred to in Germany....is on the run.  My humble guess is that he's probably out in the German countryside, and he's changed the color of his hair.  A year or two from now....he'll come up with some fake ID and claim to be some German kid.

I think Germany is kind of stuck with the Forest Kid.

The Junk-Mail Situation

There has been this issue brewing in the German court system....over the German postal folks and what they can be "forced" into delivering.  At the heart of the matter....is the extremist party....the NPD.  They produce a publication of sorts, and they wanted to get the publication out into the public sight.  The German Post stood up and said they shouldn't be forced into delivering it to households.

The court finally settled into the matter, and issued out a statement....mail is mail.  So the Post has to deliver the extremist publications.

The tipping point of this entire argument was that these publications were "unaddressed" (junk-mail, for the typical American).  The Post wanted to stop the delivery because people would end up getting this and possibly getting hostile toward the Post for such a delivery (my humble opinion).

For the most part, the NPD still survives on but most Germans just aren't interested in their position or their points.  The numbers of members?  There are ball-park numbers occasionally given out, but most German publications will agree that they aren't really sure about how Germans fall into this radical Nazi-group.  There could be 100k.....there could be 200k.

The Neo-Nazi Episode

In the last couple of months....Germans have woke up and realized that some Neo-Nazis were involved in a series of murders and robberies.  The cops, at least by my prospective, weren't able to link these episodes....some going back to 2006 until recently.

A massive episode?  No.  Based on everything the cops have presented....it looks like one gang only and it never went past that point.

The curious thing is that there's only one member of this gang still living (a woman), and the cops are fairly desperate at this point to dump as many charges on that remaining member.

The flip side of the episode?  Almost every single German political party wants to have various independent reviews of the cops, the Neo-Nazis, and just about anyone connected.  There could be tens of thousands of hours invested into the effect of a seven-year run of crime done by a small gang of Neo-Nazis.  The chief question would be why the cops never connected the dots.  The chief purpose?  Well....basically to get some public appeal that they, the political players, have helped to fix things.

At the end of this whole mess....the cops have to be thinking that there are various murders throughout Germany every single year, and then wondering how many more might be connected to a group or individual.