Garbage and recycling
In Germany, waste is separated before being collected. This page explains how to separate and where to dispose of waste in Tuebingen.
| Which garbage goes where? |
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Gelber Sack (yellow bag): recyclable packaging materials (plastic containers, plastic bags, tin cans etc.). Everything with the Grüner Punkt mark on it.
Papiermüll (waste paper): anything made of paper or cardboard, e.g. paper packaging, newspapers, paper bags from the bakery etc., as long as it’s clean (= no used paper dishes etc.). No tissue paper. Biomüll (organic waste): food leftovers, vegetable and fruit leftovers, plants, tea/coffee bags, egg shells, meat, spoiled food etc. Restmüll (residual waste): all remaining/unrecyclable waste Common bin colors are blue for waste paper, green for organic waste, and gray/black for residual waste. On the day of collection, your bin needs to be next to the street so the trash collectors can empty it. You can put it out on the night before collection. If you are living in a dormitory, housing management usually takes care of putting the bins out. The city of Tuebingen recently introduced paper bins for private households. Additionally, paper waste is collected once every 5 – 8 weeks by Tuebingen’s clubs, in cooperation with the city. If you want to support Tuebingen's clubs by letting them collect your paper waste, you need to either bundle up your paper waste or put it inside paper boxes/paper bags and put it in front of your building on the day of collection. Many people use grocery bags made from paper (available at the register in supermarkets) to collect their paper waste. |
| Overview of collection days |
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You can get a personalized overview of the collection days in your street online from the pages of Tuebingen's waste department (in German only) In the box saying „Bitte klicken Sie Ihren Wohnort an“, please select where you are living. From the drop down menu in the next line, please choose the area or street you are living in. Under “Bitte geben Sie den Zeitraum an”, you can choose the months you want to see. After that, you can display the dates by clicking on “Kalender anzeigen” or print them by choosing “Kalender drucken”. |
| "Waste alarm" - reminder to take out the trash |
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Want to make sure that you don’t miss any waste collection days? You can set up a "waste alarm" ("Müllwecker") email alert on the homepage of Tuebingen's waste department, or you can check out the Tuebingen waste app. For “Ort” and “Teilort/Straße”, please choose your city of residence and area/street. For “Benachrichtigung”, please select whether you would like to receive an email notification 2 or 1 days in advance (2/1 Tage vorher) or on the day of collection itself (am Tag der Abholung). Waste is often collected early in the morning, so choosing 1 or 2 days in advance is recommended. Finally, please enter your email address in the last box and click “Registrieren” (register). At the bottom of the "Müllwecker" page you can also cancel any alerts that you have set. Simply enter your email address under "Einen Müllwecker abbestellen" and you will be shown a list of alerts that you have subscribed to. |
| Plastic and glass bottles |
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For plastic and glass bottles, there is a separate collection system called Pfandsystem. This means that when you buy something in a bottle, you pay a small deposit (Pfand) which you will get back when you return the bottle, e.g. at the grocery store. Returnable bottles have the following symbol printed on their packaging:
Empty bottles can be returned at special machines at the supermarket. The machine will print a receipt for you, and you will get the deposit back at the register. All other glass without this symbol – e.g. jam jars, wine bottles, vinegar/oil bottles etc. - has to be disposed of in a public glass container. There are separate containers for white, brown and green glass. Red and blue glass also go into the green glass containers.
You can find glass containers near your home on this map: If you live outside the main city area or in the surrounding villages, you can find the container nearest to you by choosing Standorte Tübingen Teilorte or Standorte Landkreis Tübingen (surrounding villages) from the left side menu. To limit noise for the neighbors, throwing glass into the containers is only allowed Monday to Saturday between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.. |
Updated 16/11/2018 1:41pm
