- Do buy milk, beverages, etc. in deposit-bottles, which can be refilled several times. Don't buy cans, because the energy input to produce them is very high!
- When going shopping, use a basket instead of plastic bags.
- Buy fresh vegetables and fruits from the local market.
- Buy regional products. Products from countries far away from your home country have to be transported many miles. The result is air pollution from trucks, airplanes, etc.
- Buy recycling paper and other recycled products.
- Buy products which have a loing shelf/service life.
In order to recycle rubbish you first have to separate it into it's different kinds: glass, paper, plastics, organic waste, toxic waste, etc. The separation of the waste is a part of everyday life in Germany. In every household there are several bins for the different types of waste. The bins often have different colors so that everybody can remember where to put what products where. Everyone would separate his/her own waste, and the majority of the population in Germany does this. The refuse collection picks up the different types of waste, then recycling has to be the next step.
Germany has a consumption of about 15 million tons of paper and cardboard per year (as of 2000). About 40% for the printing of newspapers, magazines, books, etc. and another 40% is used for packing material and only 8% is for writing. More than half (60%) of this needed paper is recycled but it could be more. In several places of the world, vast areas of forest are cut down for the paper industry. With the use of recycled paper, the destruction of these forests can be stopped.
To produce recycled paper, you don't need any wood. The recycled paper is put together with water into a huge mixer, where it gets the consistency of mash. This mash is cleaned with the help of strainers and centrifuges. The mash gets into a strainer where the water flows off and the fibers reconnect to form a sheet of paper. The paper is pressed and dried and finally rolled on a huge roller. You need little energy and water to do this as well.
About 31 million tons of glass are needed in Germany per year only to pack up something. It is used as bottles for beverages, for preserving food, cosmetics, etc. Deposit bottles are ecological because they can be refilled many times.
For glass recycling, you have to separate the different types of glasses by their color (white, green, brown). To produce new glass, you need old glass, sand, soda, lime and energy. The glass is melted at a very high temperature and then mixed with the other needed things. For recycling glass, the amount of sand, soda, lime and energy can be reduced if people would use less glass.
The best way to recycle organic waste is to create your own compost pile in your garden. Organic material is decomposed by microorganisms. The result of that is humus that contains important nutrients that trees and other plants need to grow. Organic waste from your kitchen and garden can be composted, except for the skins of tropical fruits. Many people in Germany do not have the capability to build up a compost in their garden and so the waste is collected and brought to a centralized compost pile in the city and composted that way.
It is very difficult to recycle these materials because there are many different types of plastics. You can only recycle plastics if they are strictly separated into their different types. You can build ne wproducts out of recycled plastics, but then the second recirculation of recycling is almost impossible. The best thing to do is to avoid buying plastic all together.