Separating your rubbish for recycling in Berlin

Hi. I am currently arguing this with my girlfriend who is a native here. I feel that we should separate our rubbish, plastics, papers, metals and food into different bins, but that we can assist with the recycling/disintigration process. However, my girlfriend argues that there is no point in doing this as the rubbish is collected al together and then resorted in trash heaven.

Can anyone tell me, for Berlin, what the facts are here?

Thanks.

Waste materials, aka trash, is in fact collected and processed separately, so no worries there. Germany has some very advanced sorting technology, especially for dealing with mixed packaging waste (the Grüne Punkt stuff which goes in the Gelbe Tonne).

It's people who put the wrong stuff in the wrong bin who make it more expensive for everyone else!

Yes!

My building doesn't even have separate bins and I HATE it! I want to recycle!

Not in Berlin - but like the idiot next door who puts ALL his rubbish in the grey bin one week & all in the brown bin the next. Proudly say he throw his piles of leaves into the ditch across the road instead of transporting to nearby FREE collection area. Need I say hes a recently retired teacher?

Well, recycling is good, but...
The fact that you recycle at home does not mean that it will all go to the separate garbage at the end-place. My collegues (all germans, all chemists or physicists, well educated) laughted at me when I meant that I am recycling. They told me it all will be mixed up at the end.

But..

They also told me that the green dot (the recylcle sign) is taken care of by the companies who actually package your products. So they pay in advance for the grabage. Although the garbage is not eventually "really" recycled, you (the customer) do not pay additionally for your packaged-garbage...

So, recycling is good (probably) for:

*paper
*glass (but I am not sure what's cheaper - to make new glass from sand or to recycle - so even here it might be useless)
*and economically speaking, packaging with that green recycle sign. However, not because it is really recycled. You just do not pay for it being burned (or otherwise treated) - the way exactly as any other garbage is proceeded. Not "greener", nor with a smaller CO2 emission.

If you really do wish feel good about yourseves - as it seems from several people here - do not buy packaged stuff and produce as little grabage as possible. It would be your best contribution (and much harder to fullfill!) - but it would be for REAL.

Well, you do actually pay for it every time you buy something (companies don't have a magic pot of money), it's just factored into the end price as a cost. And they don't just mix it alltogether again, despite what "people" tell you. There were huge problems when they first brought this in, because there wasn't enough capacity / technology for separation / recycling, and no doubt even now some of the stuff has to be burned / buried anyway. However, with raw material costs going up, recycling is becoming an increasingly attractive business (I read an article recently about a place which recycles Berlin's plastic waste, and they actually had some stolen and had to improve their site security), and it does, incredibly, make sense.


IIRC recycling glass is quite efficient, that's why glass and paper recycling were the first to appear.

This is what the Grüner Punkt people have to say on plastics recycling: Significant increase in plastics recovery. (Not sure how that compares with total waste figures etc.).

Buying less packaging (avoidance) is of course better than recycling.

Also vaguely on the subject of recycling, does anyone know where I can find a clothing donation bin near Potsdamer Platz? I've got about three bags full of old clothes that I need to get rid of. Thanks