00:00this is my morning routine for most days and being in a new country hasn't
00:07changed that I still get to do what I love I am Mwashara Gonjiri a DW reporter
00:15from Nairobi Kenya the coolest part of jogging here the breathtaking views
00:23Berlin is such a beautiful city but hold up one of my biggest culture shocks in
00:32Germany trash in Kenya I just have one being where everything goes but here
00:39there's a blue one for paper yellow for plastics and packaging green for glass
00:44and black is for the rest it's like a color-coded game of sustainability no
00:51stop you're throwing away money yes you can bring it back to the supermarket and
00:56get a deposit back really I have so many in my house I think I need to do that
01:00where can I take them you can bring it to any supermarket any problem I came to
01:07Berlin with my sister and we drink a lot of bottled water every day now I know we
01:17can get money back for returning the empty bottles in any supermarket this
01:22system makes everyone think twice about plastic use the less plastic we demand
01:28the less new plastic gets made
01:33this is a fund automat a deposit return machine it is one of Germany's recycling
01:40superheroes here is how it works when you return the bottles you get your money back if you
01:49don't you lose it normally when you buy water in these bottles you will have to pay a little extra
02:00I got water curious about what happens in the plastic sorting plants I visited one that
02:09is run by interzero today I'm meeting beyond shvish who is a general manager
02:21every every morning when I enter the delivery hall and I see I see that huge mountain of waste delivered
02:28every day and every day and every day and this is only the waste from Berlin and and the surrounding
02:33areas I see how much waste we are we as citizens are producing and yeah that's that's the story my
02:41story that tells that zero waste mission is this important this is one of interzero's five sorting
02:49facilities in Germany here waste is sorted by advanced machine that separate the different kinds of
02:55packaging waste into material streams yeah the easiest material to to sort and to recycle is
03:02the mono materials they are very easy to to sort and to recycle and and as well template ferrim metals
03:10and so on aluminium is as well included in the yellow bag not so good recyclable are the multi-layer
03:18packages the sorted plastics are pressed into bills and sent to recycling plants
03:24this process by interzero alone cut about 1.2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions
03:31in 2023 according to Fraunhofer institute one of Germany's renowned research centers
03:37but still the recycling plant faces some challenges
03:43a clear commitment from the politics to to sustainable economy would be very good for example if the
03:50policies would decide that we have to implement a refund system for batteries that will be that will be
03:58perfect because every day sorting plants and recycling plants are burning because of
04:04batteries that are thrown into the bins some experts argue Germany still doesn't recycle as much waste as
04:11statistics suggest especially when it comes to plastic packaging according to official statistics
04:17only 46 percent of plastic waste is recycled while 53 percent is banned to generate energy
04:25that means turning plastic waste into usable heat electricity or fuel
04:31but recycling with the deposit system helps Germany stay cleaner and greener
04:36I really like the refund automates in Germany because that ensures that a pretty pure fraction
04:44with a high quality of PET bottles is collected we can even in our sorting plans we can separate
04:52PET bottles and PET cups as well but it's always better on the point of collection to separate it
04:58Germany is promoting a circular economy through such deposit-based recycling systems and that's not all I'm learning here
05:09I just found out tap water is absolutely safe to drink and Germany's tap water ranks among the best in the world
05:17so nowadays I carry my reusable bottle everywhere and there's no need for endless plastic bottles
05:24new country new habits and new lessons to share and don't forget every small step counts in protecting our planet
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