Berlin to crack down ona beloved giveaway tradition – DW

Between old sofas and broken fridges, boxes of baby clothes and crates of cassettes, hidden treasures dot Berlin’s streets. In one such collection of unwanted stuff, Berlin musician Eno Thiemann discovered a new favorite author.

The Haruki Murakami books were left outside with the label “zu verschenken.” Meaning “to gift”, it’s a tradition that has long seen Berliners leave their repurposable goods on window ledges and in front of houses for others to take. And take, they do. Often within a matter of minutes.

“I was very pleased when I came back in 2013 to see that there’s some kind of culture,” said Thiemann, who had left Berlin three decades earlier before the practice took off. “Most people don’t just throw the trash out — it’s a nice thing to do and it’s enriching the neighborhood.”

But as Berlin plans to fine people for putting items on the street, this informal circular economy could become a thing of the past. The city’s environment department argues that while the idea behind leaving things out for others to take is “good and desirable,” it has “led to excesses that are not in line with the original intention.” And cleaning up is not cheap — last year it cost the city about €10.3 million ($12.8 million) to remove rubbish, including e-waste and construction trash dumped without authorization.

Little bags and boxes of clothes, CDs and books can be found all over the cityImage: Josh Axelrot/DW

“It must be made clear that leaving items on the street does not release the owner from responsibility for them, along the lines of ‘I gave it away’ so now I’m rid of it,” a spokeswoman for the department told DW.

Berlin raises its fines

Last year, Berliner Stadtreinigungsbetriebe (BSR), the city’s garbage and recycling contractor, said it cleaned up 54,000 cubic meters of illegal waste found across Berlin, an 8% increase over the year before. The authorities see the main culprits as construction waste disposal firms looking to save money.

Items that are not claimed are ultimately cleared away by the cityImage: Josh Axelrot/DW

Heavy fines are necessary because “incorrigible litterers can often only be reached through their wallets,” a BSR spokesman said, adding that the problem is worse in some districts than in others.

But the penalties, which are due to come into effect in the coming weeks, will also apply to other items discarded on the stree. Anyone caught leaving out clothes or dishes in the central district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, for example, can expect a penalty of €150 to €300 — up from current fines of between €25 and €75.

A spokesperson for the district said residents dumping appliances like refrigerators and washing machines could be hit with a penalty of between €1,000 and €15,000. The rate previously maxed out at €5,000.

How realistic are the penalties?

The idea is that the fines will either be issued by plainclothes field staff or will result from witnesses who go online to report dumping. But Berliners are not convinced the new penalties can be enforced.

“They go out and they find a mattress and then what?” asks Marianne Kuhlmann, co-founder of Circularity, a Berlin-based organization that helps businesses reduce their waste. “The likelihood that they will catch the person in the moment he puts the mattress there is super low.”

“As for finding people, it will be hard unless people are leaving their business cards inside the boxes,” Thiemann said.

A more formal circular economy

The BSR argues that residents can use other avenues to dump what they no longer want.

“No-one in our city is forced to simply leave their trash on the street,” BSR spokesman Sebastian Harnisch told DW. “There are a wealth of attractive disposal options available to private individuals for getting rid of bulky waste, electronic waste, and other trash free of charge or at low cost.”

Furniture left out on the street for someone else to claim and is often snapped up quicklyImage: Josh Axelrot/DW

These, they say, include neighborhood swap days, one of the city’s 14 recycling centers and a secondhand store, named “NochMall”, which plays on the German noch mal, meaning once more. For that option, they offer a pick-up service for a fee.

A ‘short-sighted’ policy

Sustainability advocates, however, say that is not the point. They argue that formal drop-off points are less attractive for those who can’t drive or don’t have a car.

Doris Knickmeyer, a Zero Waste City Mentor at Berlin nonprofit Zero Waste Verein fears the city’s crackdown could have ill-intended results.

“People who are afraid of being fined in the future, they might throw good, usable things in the bins now because it’s easier and more convenient than driving through half the city to donate them at NochMall.”

She also highlights the lack of differentiation between those dumping ratty furniture that is unlikely to be reclaimed, and those putting out a box of lightly used clothes that might be snapped up before the end of the day.

Not everything that people chuck out finds a new homeImage: Josh Axelrot/DW

“Naming those who take environmental responsibility in the same sentence with polluters who avoid responsibility is highly problematic,” Knickmeyer said.

How well is Berlin doing on waste recycling?

In 2021, Berlin unveiled its Zero Waste 2030 strategy, pledging that “raw materials should be continuously reused and recycled to create new products for as long as possible.”

By the end of the decade, the city aims to recycle 64% of construction waste and reduce residual trash volume by 20%.

Making the pledge and establishing a zero-waste agency within the BSR put Berlin on the right path, but a 2024 report from the intergovernmental Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the city’s “reliance on waste incineration remains high, and recycling rates lag behind national averages.”

Cities like Madrid, Brussels, Copenhagen and Ljubljana have all begun either reducing their reliance on incineration or rejecting plans to build new plants to reduce carbon emissions from burning trash.

Knickmeyer proposes Berlin maintain its “zu verschenken” culture with dedicated spots on each street or in each neighborhood for giveaways.

“You have to find a balance between making it easy and fostering a sharing culture in the community, but also understanding that this causes real trouble for the city because it’s a million-dollar-cost each year to get the streets cleaned,” Kuhlmann said.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker