City councils across the country have started dispatching staff to sift through bins to ensure households separate their garbage correctly and to fine wrongdoers. Waste disposal is a complex affair in Germany, which is as famous for its cleanliness as it is for its sense of order.
Many authorities force households to put their trash into as many as seven different bins.
Yellow bins take packaging, blue ones take paper and cardboard. Anything biodegradable goes into brown bins. The idea is that separation makes recycling easier. There is no law however on padlocking one's bin to prevent snooping. The mayor of the eastern German town of Rostock last month initiated regular checks by teams of city workers instructed to identify offending bins with red stickers to prevent them from being emptied.