Separating waste properly – how consumers can help to safeguard resources
Answers to the most frequently asked questions with regard to the collection of recyclables
Consumers can play a key role in the success of dual systems by separating their waste carefully: Although sophisticated sorting technologies are now in use, it is correct presorting at home that guarantees ecologically sound packaging recycling at a reasonable cost.
What goes where?
Not all packaging marked with the Green Dot belongs in the yellow bin, yellow bag or yellow container. The yellow collection containers are exclusively for sales packaging made of aluminium, composites, plastic and tinplate. Composites consist of at least two different materials which cannot be separated by hand. One example is the beverage carton, which consists of cardboard, the plastic polyethylene and, in some cases, a layer of aluminium. Packaging made of paper or cardboard belongs in the blue bin, paper container or waste-paper bundle. Glass packaging should be sorted by colour and placed in the correct bottle-bank for recycling.
Don’t rinse, but remember the lid
There’s no need to rinse empty yoghurt tubs before putting them in the recyclables bin – it’s wasted effort. Every consumer can save water by merely checking that yoghurt tubs (just like all other packages bearing the Green Dot) have been spooned empty before being dropped in the Yellow Sack or the Yellow Bin.
Consumers often leave the lid on empty non-returnable glass containers, so as to avoid unwanted odours in the house. Although lids and closures, like all lightweight packages made of aluminium, plastic, composites or tinplate, basically belong in the Yellow Bin or the Yellow Sack, this is not a problem either: sophisticated sorting technology for glass packages rejects these materials in fully automated mode – irrespective of whether it’s aluminium, plastic, tinplate or natural corks. Size, by the way, is not a factor when it comes to separating waste: Modern-day sorting facilities are able to separate even small packages, like sweet wrappers or miniature cans of milk, with eco-friendly efficiency.
Blue belongs with green
There are occasional misunderstandings among users of bottle-banks. “Why is green, brown and white glass collected separately and then all jumbled together when it’s collected in the disposal vehicle?” is a question frequently put. This “phenomenon” is easily explained: the disposal vehicles have separate compartments inside, which are separately filled when the used glass is collected. So bottles and jars that have been sorted by colours at home will remain colour-separated.
Consumers confused by the niceties of sorting coloured glass, can apply the following rules: blue and other-coloured glass that cannot be assigned to a particular container category belongs in the collection containers for green glass. This is because green glass permits higher proportions of foreign colours in the melting process and the manufacture of new glass. In the case of brown glass, only a small proportion of heterogeneous material can be allowed, and the particularly “colour-sensitive” white glass tolerates practically no colour admixture at all.
High-quality recycled products
High-quality recycled products that are playing an ever-greater role in many facets of our everyday lives are tangible proof of how efficacious purposeful waste separation really is. Glass packages dumped in the collection containers of the Dual System, for example, enter a “closed recycling circuit”, meaning that old bottles and jars, etc., are made into new ones – as often as desired.
Waste paper, accounting for 65 per cent, is the raw material most frequently employed in Germany’s paper production processes. It’s used, for example, to make kitchen towel, notepaper, envelopes or bags. Newsprint can be produced entirely from recycled materials, but print stocks for mail order catalogues, magazines or books can nowadays, thanks to innovative recycling technology, be produced with a progressively larger proportion of waste paper.
The supply of useful recycled products made from plastic packages ranges from buckets and sandboxes, window and door frames, or traffic islands, all the way through to electrical casings, CD boxes and children’s toys.
Secondary raw materials made from used plastic packages are an affordable and eco-friendly alternative to new plastics. Thanks to steadily rising levels of quality, they are proving an increasingly coveted starting material for the plastics processing industry.
Status: March 2007
