is called Restmüll in Gerrmany, which translates into English as residual waste? It's called this as many believe that it's only after you have fully extracted every possible use from an object should you then put it into the waste bin. I think this captures the philosophy that Germans apply to recycling. To recycle here, we have brown containers into which we put our compost such as vegetable scraps and eggshells. And then there are separate bags for paper recycling, as well as yellow bags into which we put soft plastics and metal containers such as cans.
But that's not all, as there is also glass recycling, for which there are two categories. Firstly, there is Pfand ('fahnd'), which is the refundable deposit of a few cents you pay when you buy an item in a glass container. However, iif you are not planning on getting the Pfand back yourself (say, for example, because you are spending the day walking around town and do not want to carry it around), you can leave the glass container next to the trash so that someone else can collect the Pfand instead! The other category of glass recycling covers all the other types of glass containers, which you then have to sort into the correct containers at the collection center, corresponding to the color of the glass. It took me some time to get used to this, and I definitely made a few mistakes along the way, but my roommates have been great about helping me to learn the proper way to recycle in German!
Getting around / public transit:
I don't have a car, but I think I've been able manage just fine without one.
