Too much plastic in the bin: organic waste should be controlled more closely

Too much plastic in the bin
Organic waste should be controlled more closely

Time and again, rubbish that doesn't belong there ends up in the organic waste bin. According to the relevant trade association, it should be up to 15 percent foreign matter, which results in expensive incineration. That's why he calls for stronger controls on the brown bins.

So that fewer plastic bags end up in organic bins and later end up in composting plants, there are calls for stricter controls in the waste management sector. When collecting the waste, the garbage collectors should look into the organic waste bin more often and – after giving advice to the residents – leave it behind, says Bernd Jörg, Vice-Head of the responsible professional association of the industry association BVSE. Leaving a garbage can standing is "the last resort", but it is sometimes necessary to improve the quality of the organic waste that is delivered. In some cases, the biowaste delivered contains up to 15 percent foreign matter, which entails expensive incineration.

There are already controls of organic bins when they are collected, but the garbage collectors in the municipalities handle them differently. Non-ecological waste in the organic bin has long been a problem – whether diapers, canned food, aluminum foil or plastic bags. There are biodegradable plastic bags, but their use is controversial.

Jörg also complains that some municipalities do not inform their citizens enough about what belongs in the organic waste bin and what doesn’t. Other municipalities, on the other hand, rely on very good information campaigns, accordingly the problem of a high proportion of contaminants in the waste batches is rather low there. The citizens would have to participate. "The environmental aspect of a sorted collection of organic waste has to be transported – in a positive sense, i.e. via information campaigns, but also in a negative sense, i.e. via a waste bin."

Do you need more bio bins?

The background to the demand is a reform proposal by the Federal Environment Ministry for the organic waste ordinance. A central point here is the regulation that biowaste may not contain more than 0.5 percent foreign matter before treatment. The operators of the bio-waste plants should be responsible for maintaining the value – they would have to sort and sift. They already do that, but there are no percentage requirements for this yet. The regulation would make your work more complex and systems would have to be retrofitted for a lot of money.

The head of the industry association BDE, Peter Kurth, considers the contaminant value to be "unsuitable in practice". In order to collect more bio-waste in the sense of the circular economy, more bio bins are required, but also improved public relations and more controls, he says. Kurth sees the municipalities as having an obligation to deal with municipal waste. They would have to instruct the municipal or private waste disposal companies commissioned by them accordingly in order to proceed more strictly when collecting the biowaste.

The BVSE representative Jörg thinks the 0.5 percent is only feasible if the quality of the delivered material improves. It requires a separate maximum value for foreign substances: The organic and green waste delivered to the treatment plant should not contain more than three percent total foreign substances. That would make the garbage disposal responsible – they would have to pay more attention to the contents of the bins.

Every year the garbage collectors in Germany collect around 10 million tons of "biogenic municipal waste", most of which comes from households. The waste rots and becomes compost for gardens and fields. There are concerns about plastic particles that may have been left in the compost. In order to minimize such environmental risks, Berlin wants to act and improve the quality of the organic waste.

Up to 15 percent foreign matter content

And what is the current quality of the quantities delivered? This is not really clear because there are no comprehensive measurements. A study by the Association of Municipal Companies (VKU), which represents municipal waste disposal companies and municipal composting plant operators, provides a hint: In August, member companies carried out spot checks to determine the foreign matter content of their organic waste. Result: For deliveries from twelve residential areas, the value was between 0.3 and 5.5 percent. bvse man Jörg, who speaks for private companies, gives higher numbers and speaks of up to 15 percent foreign matter content.

The VKU thinks it makes sense to check the contents of organic bins when they are picked up – so that waste quantities in which foreign substances are recognizable do not even enter the facility. "This is already happening systematically in many places," says a VKU spokeswoman. To set a maximum value for the collection or delivery of contaminants, the VKU thinks little of that at the moment – in view of the sometimes very high proportions of contaminants, that would be just as impractical as the 0.5 percent requirement for processing.

The association calls for understandable and clear guidelines as to which types of bioplastics are compostable – such guidelines have so far been missing. At the moment, bags, mugs or even clothes are falsely declared as compostable, the spokeswoman said. In reality, however, the majority of these products are not degradable in the plants.

. (tagsToTranslate) economy (t) environmental protection (t) recycling