Hello neighbor, could we borrow a cup of … crowbar?

Every few days we’ve received deliveries of furniture, dishware and electronics from local and online stores – replacements for things we chose not to ship. Amazingly, each item has made daily life so much easier. Who would have thought crisping bread in a toaster would ever feel luxurious?

And last week, we got word from the company delivering our household goods from the states that they’d be here on Friday. Great, we’d climb a major rung of domesticate living ladder, we thought.

But as the saying goes, anything worth having is worth the work (or something like that). We had assumed we’d ordered a full service delivery to our apartment. But here’s what we got:

Enter the wooden crates...yes WOODEN CRATES.

At 5:30 p.m. - just after dark - the crates arrived. And here I thought only vampire coffins and cursed museum relics came in wooden crates.

The crates were about 2,5 meters (over 8 feet) tall...and a gazillion pounds

The “movers” turned out to be a freight shipping company. So after they helped Thomas wheel them to our apartment entrance way, they left us with the sealed, metal-band-reinforced crates. And to adding to our stress level was the German concept of Ruhezeit (where you shouldn’t make noise after during certain hours, like after 8 p.m.). Yeah…busting splitting timber and carting boxes and furniture up several stories won’t make noise.

Crate 1 of 2.

So, we stood there for a few minutes looking up at the rectangular monsters blocking half the sidewalk. At least it wasn’t snowing.

Then it started snowing.

I knew our neighbors across the hall had been doing a lot of interior construction, so what better time to introduce yourself than when you need something…especially something as common as a crowbar…or better yet, a chainsaw. Unfortunately, they had neither. They also probably think we’re insane now. Super.

But somewhere along the way, we must have earned some moving karma points. Another neighbor (the husband of Thomas’ co-worker who also lives in our building) had a small, manual handsaw and – more importantly – a willingness to help.

For the next two hours, Thomas tore the crates open, board-by-board. Then the three of us hurried all of the long-awaited contents out of the snow and into the building.

One down...one to go

We finished around 8:30 (slightly breaking the sacred Ruhezeit, but too tired to care).

The next day...

Even though our belongings were safely inside, we still had to deal with the empty and now unstable crates looming outside. Unlike in the U.S. where we usually just pay someone to cart of large amounts of waste, in Munich, you’re on your own…unless you give at least a week notice. And don't even think about taking wood to the regular trash. There's a special handling facilty for that, of course.

The morning after

So while I spent most of Saturday unpacking boxes inside, Thomas spend about seven hours tearing down the crates and stashing the wood in our underground parking spot. It's a good thing we don’t have a car. But maybe now we can build one…out of wood. Oh wait, I just remembered, we hate wood now.

Taking the trash out - German style

There's a lot to learn about trash and recycling in Germany. In Munich, there’s an entire website dedicated to what goes where and even an interactive game where you can virtually sort waste. 

Waste is divided into several categories, the first three of which we can easily dispose of just outside our apartment:

• Restmüll - non-toxic, non-recyclable or otherwise compostable other waste.  
• Bio - pronounced like BO which it kind of smells like since it consists of food scrapes and other organic materials (but not cat poop...in case you were wondering. Yeah, we checked). The cool thing about bio waste is that the city collects and composts it so you can complete the circle by buying it back as fertilizer for your garden.
• Paper.

We have restmüll, bio and paper bins outside our apartment

 

The majority of the other categories, we bundle up and carry to a disposal station down the street. These stations, called Wertstoffinsel, are all over the city and accept:

• Brown glass.
• Green glass.
• Clear glass.
• Certain types of aluminum - for example aluminum cans are OK but not aluminum foil. 
• Materials labeled with a Grüne Punkt - such as most plastic product packaging.

Wertstoffinsel disposal station - for this we just take a short walk down the street

Aside from the slight annoyance of looking a bit homeless by trekking the sidewalks, garbage bags in tow, the bins themselves don’t have lids you can lift. They have holes about the size of a small salad plate so you have to dig into your bag of crap and toss items in almost one at a time. In part, I think it’s the city’s way of “encouraging” you to bring your own reusable packaging to stores or get items like cheese wrapped in paper from the deli instead of the plastic, commercially packed kind. If so, it’s working. I’m much more conscious of product packaging when I buy groceries now.

And of course, other items such as wood, cork, clothing, electronics, chemicals, batteries or toxic waste must be taken to a special handling facilities. Cat poop, as toxic as it smells, is fortunately considered restmüll, again, just in case you were wondering...

And if you think you can shirk your waste disposal duties, think again. There’s trash police! Occasionally, the bins outside your residence may be inspected to help ensure proper waste disposal adherence. If you’re caught breaking the rules, you could be fined. As Thomas said, imagine what people in the U.S. would say about that! The government is in your trash can! GASP!

Sure the process seems complicated at first, and it's certainly less convenient than in the states (mostly because many people either don't bother to recycle or recycling centers sort items for them), but it’s much better for the environment. So if it means a cleaner tomorrow, I’m more than happy to sort, transport and even reduce our household waste. And eventually I’ll master the system so I can stop asking Thomas so where does this go? ten times a day.