Bottle collecting is a tough job: rummage through trash, empties, haul, looks to endure. How does it feel? And what comes of it? Our Reporter went in with an empty plastic bag.
Almost up to the shoulder, my Arm is stuck in the bright orange street trash. I key in the interior of a coke bottle made of soft plastic, this is important, because this means that you will bring me later to 25 cents. Jackpot, so to speak. I pull out the bottle, put it in the plastic bag and walk quickly, head down, avoid the eye contact with passers-by. Your eyes I can feel anyway.
Already the most casual inspection of the waste bins were uncomfortable, clearly. But this Garbage digging deeper on the open road, is the… Yes, what is it? Embarrassing, undignified, demeaning, most people in Germany would say. But for some here it is, quite simply, work everyday.
Tinkling shopping trolleys in the cities
Exact Figures do not exist, but who is running through a German city and the eyes open, looks at you, the bottle collector. In 2006, the soccer world Cup drove the thirst for beer in the height, by a Change to the Deposit system, the bottles were now even more Deposit. Since then, they drag through the streets, with shopping trolleys, plastic bags, shopping trolley in search of the next bottle you take to the people, either immediately after the last SIP, from the sidewalk, or revoke, Yes: from the trash bin.
About 720 million disposable bottles are not returned, according to estimates, each year. At 25 cents per bottle 180 million euros. Added to this are the reusable bottles, the eight-or 15 cents. Because a market is so to say on economic advisers, German, somewhere, the bottles must be Yes. You must only pick up in the supermarket, and then what comes together, is it? But how much? The worth you can live on it? And what is it like to be on the instructed what it is for other people’s garbage?
I’m looking for the answers to a journey through Berlin, here you need to lie somewhere in between the bottles. One day I’m walking through the heart of the city, from the northeast to the southwest. A balmy autumn day, the sun shines from time to time between the clouds. Fresh air, no office work, wonderfully I think, as I was heading out in the morning with empty plastic bags in your backpack.
In the bins, I do not watch in the beginning, the wall of Shame is still too high, instead, my view while walking the sidewalk scans. To trees leaning on power boxes, walls – anywhere I can find bottles. But, unfortunately, only bottles of wine and, well, mortgage-free.
In some cities, there are already a waste container with a so-called pledge ring, to avoid the bottle collectors the degrading grip in the trash.
Clearly, all grazed by the pros, now don’t let. And actually, there in the bushes: an empty bottle of Desperados, a beer with tequila flavor. Wow, this is my inner joy. Until I see that in the bottle the belly of a lemon, and probably also a bit longer. It smells beery, sour rots, but squeamish or picky, I may not be with us today. I prefer the piece with a pointed thumb and index finger through the neck of the bottle, way to throw it out, shake the last drops from the bottle on the sidewalk. The first eight cents of Hiking in my bag.
Each bottle brings in the return machines, depending on the nature of the pledge – eight, 15 or 25 cents.
As I arrive after significantly more than an hour at Alexanderplatz in Berlin Mitte, I have four bottles. Quite a tedious. A Cup of coffee first? My attention to a man hanging, the draws determined not determined through the station building. “Star Wars” is on its plastic carry bag, the upper end is rolled together. He remains on the verge of a garbage can, looks inside, then goes on. I will follow him. “Excuse me, you collect bottles?”
“Two packs of cigarettes come out”
I got him scared a scare, told me Björn Kaiser* a little later, as we mugs with coffee under the TV tower sit. Guard services throw a bottle collector, often from the railway stations, says the 58-Year-old, sometimes they are civil and on-the-go.
He himself collect between six and seven hours a day, seven days a week. BUT – and he emphasized several times – only on a transitional basis. Soon he’ll start as a taxi driver, then it was over. Actually, he was an electrician, but after 22 years, his employer would have been made bankrupt. On temporary Jobs, he slipped into unemployment. “Since then, I try just to get by.” His voice trembles when he says it.
With the money from the office, he’ll have the round, that’s why the bottles. “Two packs of cigarettes come out”, or, translated into money: about 15 Euro per day. Björn is wearing clean clothes, new sneakers, moustache, short grey hair. He seems to be well maintained. Next to me is none who has given up sitting, on the contrary. There’s one that wants to remain sitting. So much So that he collects other people’s rubbish. “Just sitting around, it’s nothing.”
The Workers
“The bottle collectors are defined by their work than someone who is still working and is still part of it. This is an appreciation strategy, the rises often,” says Dr. Alban Knecht, a sociologist, has published a study on the issue of bottle collectors.
The least bottle collectors were homeless. Many were pensioners or recipients of social assistance, people with a certain income, that’s not enough for you to live. With returnable bottles, adding to it.
“The pledge system is a good thing – but of course it is not a substitute for the welfare state, that people gather around and bottles”, servant. “This is a sign that the welfare state is not working properly and that pensions are too low.” Only by collecting bottles you could not live.
“I want to live and not just survive – that’s why I collect bottles,” says Elmar, who supplements his salary with returnable bottles.
Especially not, when you find a few bottles as I do. As I we need to Elmar (“last name is not”) meet, it is clear to me what I’m doing wrong. He hangs with the head first into the garbage cans, a blue plastic garbage bag and trekking backpack from one to the next, taking cans directly from passers-by. In a Minute he gets more bottles than I have in three hours.
The 46-Year-old collects for a number of years. Fifty Euro he will do on peak days in summer, in the Winter much less. He runs solid routes, he reveals, but – “operation secret” – and collects even after his shifts as a stairway cleaner or “staircase Terrier,” as he calls it. The is not uncomfortable to walk in Public through the garbage? “Nope. Money does not smell, and hands can be washed,” says Elmar and grins.
That’s what it is. That’s the Spirit, now also for me. Too squeamish, too passive, not proactive enough, I was in the past. From now on, I go through the bins. The first cost can be Overcome. The second is also. The third one is already easier. And actually. Relatively quickly, I find bottles, three disposable, each, 25 cents. Now, it could go off properly. But then the courage to leave me.
Quite dangerous to grab without gloves in the trash, it goes in my head. Syringes, shards, shit – because Yes, anything can be in there and I just so pure. Pretty negligent, Yes, not think… should be more than Enough for today with the bins, I decide, and collect a few bottles from the street.
The Moment of truth at the return-of-Deposit ATMs: Much work, little return.
My feet hurt. My hands are dirty. I push the lean yield in the Deposit return machine until the bag is empty. “Total 1.38” appears on the Display. That’s all it is. Clearly, with gloves on I would have looked in even more bins, and then it would be now…
But actually (and I know), it was not the reason that held me back was my Pride. Because of Pride, I realized today that the bottle collecting. Many may think, for Deposit in the garbage cans to dig people do to outsiders. You can do it but in order to be accepted. They refuse to let blows of fate from the company’s boxes. You give up Pride in order to preserve Pride. Bottle for bottle.
*Name changed on request
Video 12:04 view Now live 12:04 Min. 
Share
If the pension is not enough
Send Facebook Twitter google+ Tumblr VZ Mr. Wong Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2rD1V