How efficient recycling works

For a year now, Germany has had high recycling rates for packaging from private sources. But how does conscious recycling work?

High recycling rates can only be achieved if recyclables are separated in households and not mixed with residual waste and thus contaminated. Many cities and districts are also switching from bag collection to bin collection. This often leads to a significant deterioration in the collection mix.

The advisory board of the Central Agency Packaging Register (ZSVR) has published a recommendation to minimise the costs of collecting recyclable materials in a bin. Significantly improved collection quality on site is to become.

Recycling made easy: well sorted is already a winner

Throughout Germany, considerable misfilling with mixed municipal waste can be observed in the practice of collecting lightweight packaging. Under certain circumstances, this Misfilling This means that the entire contents of a container must be disposed of as residual waste.

„High-quality recycling of a large volume of recyclable packaging materials is only possible if they are as clean and easy to sort as possible,“ explains Gunda Rachut, Chairman of the ZSVR, the prerequisite for the fulfilment of recycling quotas.

Packaging that is contaminated with residual waste and adhesions can neither be sorted well nor recycled to a high standard.

Please re-sort

The advisory board has now recommended a procedure that can be implemented in co-operation between systems, collectors and local authorities: In the event of repeated misfilling of a yellow bin, a Notice to the waste producer/waste owner for re-sorting until the next collection. If the request for re-sorting is not complied with, the local authority will be informed of this and can dispose of the waste as disposal waste subject to a charge. In the event of recurrence, the source of waste generation, the private end user or the comparable source of waste generation can be temporarily excluded from packaging disposal via the yellow bin in agreement with the public waste management authority.

„In large urban areas, the yellow bins often contain between 30 and 40 per cent residual waste. In rural areas, waste separation is often much better. Consistent quality assurance on site is necessary for the ambitious goals of the Packaging Act. The systems„ campaign “Waste separation works!“ also contributes to these goals. Many measures work together to establish a sustainable circular economy," says Gunda Rachut.

In order to support the achievement of high recycling rates, the legislator has set up an advisory board at the ZSVR. This „Collection, sorting, recycling“ advisory board has the task of independently developing recommendations for improving the collection, sorting and recycling of waste containing recyclable materials. In spring 2019, this advisory board established a „Collection Quality“ sub-working group. Under the leadership of Dr Holger Thärichen from the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU), the sub-working group identified measures to improve the collection quality of the yellow bin by reducing misfilling.

Source: ZSVR