Welch Whirl

Lesson #3 Go Green


Frankfurt, as well as all of Germany, has taken recycling to a whole new level and everyone participates, not just the hairy-legged tree-hugger around the corner or the PTA mom trying to be a good example for her peers (it's less about what her kids think). The reason is this: you will be fined 80Euro for not participating, and the garbage men will make note of it. Many homes/apartments just have three colored coded square garbage cans in their kitchens. Plus a plastic bottle recycling center at every grocery store where a machine will print out what each returned plastic bottle is worth, where you can then get money back as much as 15 cents per bottle. Plastic grocery bags cost money as much a 99 cents to help encourage people saving their bags to reuse them for the next trip to the store, which everyone does or they bring their own special grocery carrier. The recycling categories are slightly different than ours in the states though. Everything fits into a category.


Paper, cardboard and newspaper
Packaging-any form that isn’t cardboard
Compost-Banana peels, etc. And anything else that doesn’t fit into the other categories.


Now I know you are all wondering about one major category -- glass. About every few blocks one can find a large recycling drop off for glass. They actually categorize the glass by its color. Clear, brown, green -- yes, you guessed it those are the colors of beer bottles.









This is the outside of our apartment. We live on the bottom floor, those bottom three windows are ours.









A lot of the old buildings have this great tudor feel to them, with all the neat woodwork in the plaster. It looks like Hansel and Gretel still live there. Really this place is right out of a fairy tale!