German Trash Adventure

So this morning I decided I was going to clean our apartment, as I do most Saturday mornings. We share it with two other married couples that are away right now. Up until this point, one of the other 5 people has taken out the trash, but this morning the job fell to me. The problem is, in Germany the trash is sorted into five different bins- a very good, efficient and environmentally sound plan- and the five bins are hidden in different, obscure and seemingly random places around the outside of the apartment building. So, I gathered up our collection of small plastic bags filled with different kinds of trash and went out. First I found the green point bin- that’s the one that you put plastic and packaging (like empty plastic nutella containers) in. Then I found the Bio bin and the paper bin. Bio gets all food and plants but no plastic or anything else (besides the reward for smelling the worst), and paper gets cardboard and paper. That left me with a bag of mystery objects, the bag from the bathroom, and a bag that had old socks in it. I decided that first I would go find the Restmul, or residual waste, bin for the old socks, and deal with sorting out the other two after that (I was not looking forward to it). Residual is where you put old clothes, shoes, etc. I wandered around both the large buildings and finally asked an old man who was cleaning his stairwell where “restmul” goes, and he pointed at a window to the basement. So, I hurried back around to my own building to go down to the basement, and was met at the door by another old German man, dressed neatly in a hat and sweater (in sharp contrast to my unwashed hair and fleece pants, way to go Amaris), who started talking very seriously at me. Obviously he and probably the rest of the occupants of the building had been watching me running around out the window. I can understand about 10% of what people say in German, so I knew he was scolding me about the trash but I didn’t know what else to say. Finally I sheepishly shrugged and said, “restmul?” and he led the way to the basement, where he seized my bags from me and started looking through them, talking all the time and pointing at things. He then led me around the building again, repeating over and over “Essen, braun” and “Papier, Blau” meaning “food, brown bin” and “paper, blue bin”. Finally after about a half an hour he had satisfactorily showed me everything (I had of course already known) and explaining that there is an expensive fine for doing it wrong all in his heavy Eastern German accent (which didn’t help me with my not understanding). Who knew taking out the trash in Germany could get any more complicated?! I can’t decide of I am grateful that he sorted those bags of trash for me or if I want to die of embarrassment…