Following from last week’s blog which looked at Berlin’s smart approach to rainwater management, the same ‘smartness’ can be identified in their waste management strategies. Berlin has one of the most innovate and technologically advanced waste management systems in the world. With Germany’s decision to ban the use of traditional landfill sites in 2005, municipals had to rapidly construct an updated system of waste removal [1]. This post explores Berlin’s response, before addressing how such approaches can change the way in which we think about waste.

The process

Following the ban on the use of landfill sites, the state responded by replacing them with incinerators, biological and mechanical waste processing factories and units that produce compost from organic waste [1]. The incineration of waste creates steam as a by-product, which is reused either to create warmth or electrical energy. Most of Berlin’s rubbish ends up at the mechanical stabilisation trash plant, where it is dumped into a massive bunker and scooped up by a mechanical claw [2]. Conveyor belts carry the trash through the plant where it is sorted by size and type, and its main function is to create two piles: combustible and non-combustible matter. The combustible matter is dried and compacted into sausage shaped super energy pellets, which can be used as fuel for cars and is referred to as ‘refuse derived fuel’ [3].

BSR are the company who are responsible for ensuring Berlin is kept clean, and their garbage lorries are actually fueled by waste matter [4]. This quite literally means that garbage trucks are running on garbage! It is the gases extracted from the fermentation process which powers the lorries themselves. This self-sufficient trash system is organised by a total of 6,600 workers who collect around 1.6 million tonnes of waste per year from the capital [5]. The number of tonnes of waste has significantly decreased, while recycling rates rose and soon became a new calculation method under EU regulation [2].

The reaction and outcomes

The response from citizens has been largely positive, as they have become actively encouraged to play their part in promoting sustainable resource use. However, a common response by Berliners at first was the complexity of disposing trash due to the sheer number of different coloured bins. Despite this, the urban population have largely co-operated with the processes implemented by the state. Linked below is a video explaining the complexity of the household recycling process for citizens.

The procedures explored can be compared to natural processes that occur with living systems, where materials are not dumped, but instead they flow. One species’ waste is another animal’s food, and when living organisms die, living nutrients return to the soil safely which then promote plant growth. With all this in mind, how does this impact the people of Berlin and the way they view waste? In general, people have always had this view of waste as being completely separate from society both economically and environmentally. Generally, as humans, we assign no value to waste whatsoever. The new smart practices implemented in Berlin urge its citizens to see trash as one of the many phases in an objects life, and encourage the recognition of its other uses. Similar to the sponge city concept, this approach promotes circular metabolic flows while emphasizing the complex interaction between social and bio-physical systems.

Here are the references used:

[1] – http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Evridiki_Bersi_Kathimerini.pdf

[2] – https://www.berlin.de/senuvk/umwelt/abfallwirtschaft/downloads/siedlungsabfall/Abfall_Broschuere_engl.pdf

[3] – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20392788

[4] – https://hydrogentoday.info/news/2626

[5] – https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/19/Berliner-Stadtreinigungsbetriebe.html