Recycling may be different in Germany than your home country. In Germany you should recycle “bio waste” which includes organic, kitchen and garden waste, “lightweight packaging” which includes plastic, metal and composite materials, “paper,” “glass,” which should be sorted by color, green, brown and white, “residual waste,” which is all non-recyclable waste and “pollutants.”

Recycling Bins

Located at your home, apartment or flat, you should be equipped with three big waste bins, placed on your property. The bins entail the following:

Black Bin – Non-recyclable waste. (Restmüll)
Brown Bin – Food waste (Biomüll)
Blue Bin – Paper and cardboard (Altpapier)

Yellow bins are used for recycling, primarily for packaging materials as well as other metal or plastic waste. Packaging marked with the green dot symbol should be placed in these bins; however, they may also be used for the recycling of other items, such as broken plastic bowls or clothes hangers or damaged metal cooking pots, cutlery, or tools.

Waste Pick-Up Calendar

When it comes to the pick-up of your waste, your home, apartment or flat might already be equipped with a waste pick-up calendar.

The evening before the scheduled pick-up day, you should put the bins or bags outside along the street.  If you’re uncertain where- or how to exactly place your waste, you can always look at how your neighbors are doing it.

Glass Disposal

When it comes to the disposal of glass, this can be done at a Glass Container (Altglas). There are many places you can go to throw away glass (food jars, wine bottles, etc.), which all need to be cleaned beforehand in order to avoid smell and bees. The glass also must be separated into brown, green, and white glass. Glass Containers can be found at numerous places. For example, Kaufland and Edeka have containers in their parking lots.

Bottle Return

Germany uses a bottle return system. You pay a deposit (Pfand) for certain bottles/cans. When you return the empty bottles/cans, mostly inside grocery stores, you get your deposit back (8-25 cents per bottle to use as a coupon inside the store). Usually all supermarkets have returning machines (Pfandautomat).

You can recognize eligible bottles/cans by looking at the label, usually situated near the barcode. It will say “Pfand-Glas”, “Pfand-Flasche” or “Mehrwegflasche” or include this logo:

Other Items

Batteries also need to be disposed separately in grocery stores. They have special containers for the disposal of batteries, usually near the bottle return machines or at the entrance or exit of the store.

Papenburg

Visit this link to learn more about recycling in Papenburg.

If your apartment doesn’t have a waste pick up calendar, you can see the schedule by visiting https://www.awb-emsland.de/service/abfuhrkalender/. Scroll down slightly, select your location (Ort), street (Straße) and house number (Hausnummer). The final field (Hausnummerzusatz) is only mandatory to fill in if you have a house number with a letter, e.g. 7a, which should be noted within this field. After selecting everything, press “weiter” and you will be presented with your waste pick-up calendar.

Bigger items, such as electronics or furniture, or anything that can’t be recycled in the above categories can be brought to the waste deposit center Wertstoffhof. Please note the opening hours are limited.

Wismar

EVB is the service provider in Wismar for waste disposal.  Please visit https://www.evb-wismar.de/entsorgung/abfuhrtermine and enter your street name to verify the most up-to-date waste collection dates. 

Bigger items, such as electronics or furniture, or anything that can’t be recycled in the above categories can be brought to the Müggenburg waste management yard. Please note the opening hours are limited.