De Rerum Exrementa or On the Nature of Crap
An Essential Primer on The Disposal of Trash in Germany
Section One- On the Past Grubbiness of Germans, and their Later Reformation
In the 16th Century so illustrious a personage as Erasmus himself berated German innkeepers for being ill-mannered, ill-tempered, lazy, and above all, unspeakably filthy.
When you have taken care of your horse you come into the stove room, boots, baggage, mud and all… You pull off your boots, put on your shoes, and if you will, change your shirt… There one combs his head, another belches garlic, and there is as great a confusion of tongues as at the building of the tower of Babel. In my opinion nothing is more dangerous than for so many to draw in the same vapour… not to mention the farting, the stinking breaths.. without a doubt many have the Spanish or, as it is called, the French, pox- though it is common to all nations.
German manners, as far as cleanliness goes, have improved greatly since the reformation, although one can hardly credit this to Protestantism, as today the German catholic as well as the evangelical are likely to be obsessed (with certain curious exceptions) with personal and social hygiene. Germans approach cleanliness with the zeal of converts, and rival Torquemada in their vigorous interpretation of a harsh and categorical faith.
Dirtiness, and trash in general, is a very serious subject here. Far too serious to make a joke out of, if you are German. Fortunately, I am not German, and so am at greater liberty in this respect.
Section Two- Theological Schools of Thought Pertaining to Refuse
Much as in Erasmus’ time, when much of Christendom was divided into monists, who thought that truth was one, and pluralists, who thought that truth was many (University students being mostly armed to the teeth at the time, they tended to get drunk and kill each other over this question, so it must have been meaningful to someone) so is the world similarly divided into those who parse, analyze, dissect, vivisect, and otherwise get far too involved in the disposal of their garbage (known as Europeans) and those who just throw it away (essentially the rest of the world).
In the United States, to be fair, we generate an enormous amount of trash- in the form of paper, bottles, empty soft drink containers, cigarette packs, you name it, we make it- all the detritus of postmodern civilization (some of the residents of my home state might also be referred to as white trash, but strictly speaking, this does not fall under the purview of the discussion here.) We don’t think about it, or classify it, we just throw it away. This is because we are dirty heathens who don’t know any better.
This is not the case in Germany, where trash is not something to be merely, as it were, swept under the rug; viz, the definition of trash itself:
“Under waste and/or garbage (Swiss also: Kehricht, Austrian also: Muck) one does not understand any more necessary remnants in the solid state, which includes liquids and gases in containers. Chemical arrears are called also waste materials.”
I am entirely uncertain as to what “chemical arrears” might be, but it sounds awful. Please note that within the German speaking world even the word for “Trash” is contentious. Additionally,
“Waste can designate also wrong material at the wrong time at the wrong place.”
That statement certainly bodes ill for me, as I am often in the wrong place at the wrong time. I will spare you the recitation of the official German guides for what constitutes trash, and how one is to dispose of it, as this is written in the most complex language (the sort of thing that drives undergrads studying Kant to suicide) and is surpassed in volume only by the Babylonian Talmud and is no less concise.
Section Three- On the Nature of Trash, its Origins, and its Constituent Parts
After weeks of careful study, I have determined that the following types of refuse exist in Germany:
“Yellow Sack Trash” -
This is the sort of trash that consists of metal (such as cans), plastic if it isn’t one of those bottles with a deposit (which is one out of a hundred bottles, but you still need to know which one), wax paper that is more wax than paper, but not wax paper that is only a little bit waxy, paper like stuff that isn’t paper, essentially anything that doesn’t get defined as another sort of trash. You can identify this by a ridiculously small triangle that may or may not be printed on the material. This is called “Yellow Sack” trash because it is put in a small yellow sack- said sack being translucent so that the neighbors can examine it and inform the authorities if you have unwisely placed paper in the yellow sack that isn’t sufficiently waxy; whereupon you will be fined. Don’t worry, they will first ring your doorbell and berate you for not understanding that the paper that encloses frozen fish sticks is entirely unlike, obviously, the paper that frozen fish comes wrapped in.
“Paper”-
This goes in special plastic bins. “Paper” should be obvious, unless, of course, wax comes into play, or any other substance that might be interpreted as waxlike- i.e. modern coatings. Just as building a fence around the Torah requires endless argumentation and guaranteed lifetime employment for rabbinical sages, so does the definition of “coating” and “paper” and “paper coating” employ a veritable army of jurists, environmental technicians, and (as always) inspectors. The maintenance of this bureaucracy necessitates that your income taxes hover around 50%, insuring your inability to consume much of anything that might later become trash. Now do you see the perverted genius of the system?
“Biotonne”-
This word has no direct translation into English, although if one were to attempt to make one, one might translate it as “Stank-Goo.” If it can rot, it is biotonne, unless it is hair or nails, or bones or eggshells, more about which later. That bit of radish is biotonne, as are animal corpses (i.e. Chicken bits).
The corpses of Humans and Family pets I am unsure about. Usually fastidious Germans tend to leave a pile of rotting veggies and chicken fat remainders on the counter, until one can transport them to the apartment’s courtyard and deposit them into the big brown biotonne container. “Why don’t they put that stuff in a plastic sack?” you might ask yourself. Clearly, you have not been paying attention and are a very bad person. Your neighbors have taken note of this and, doubtless, there is a fine for moral turpitude of this severity. If you put a plastic sack full of rotting biomatter into the Biotonne container, you have introduced and element (the sack) which obviously belongs in trash category 1- “Yellow Sack.” Thus you must fill the brown biotonne container directly, with the aforementioned rotting material. This container is also filled with all the biotonne stuff from the rest of the apartments in your building, and is picked up once every two weeks. I would not advise spending a great deal of time next to the Biotonne container during, say, the month of August. Still, never fear- the authorities have thoughtfully equipped the biotonne container with vents, which allow the gases and compost odor to dissipate, preventing the danger of explosion. Occasionally, however, the biotonne does give off ghostly flares of light under the silvery moonshine. This can be quite pretty, if you aren’t close enough to smell it.
“Restmüll”-
This is the final, and most mysterious of categories of trash. “Restmüll” literally means “all other trash not covered under categories 1-3.” You thought this was what went into the yellow sack, didn’t you? Poor Acolyte, do you not realize that Samsara is Nirvana? What was I saying? Oh yes. “Restmüll”, or “remainder garbage” is really a sort of negative category Just as the great sage Rabbeinu Bachya tells us in his Hovot ha-Levavot, written in while exile in Europe (like myself) that one cannot describe with authority what God is¸only, rather, what he is not, restmüll is defined by negation. Restmüll is what it isn’t, so to speak. This is only confusing to you if you are not German. Restmüll is not recyclable, that is yellow-sack. It is not paper (unless it is, see above). It is not biodegradable, although it may stink (think cigarette butts). It is etwas ganz anders. It is the great other- that cloud of unknowing into which all inconceivable garbage must be thrown. The official rules for restmüll give very few concrete examples; those that they do give are fingernail clippings, “horn” (?) and hair. Perhaps this includes the family pet as well, but I would consult with a lawyer first.
Easy, isn’t it? Not really. Consider this; you have just finished smoking the last cigarette of that 5 euro (that’s like “$42.50 in US dollars) pack of rancid Turkish cancer sticks that you bought last week. What shall you do with it? What type of trash is it?
Section Four- Empirical Considerations of Praxis regarding Refuse (i.e. how to actually throw it away)
The Nominalists would say that the cigarette pack is Restmüll. (except for a small heterodox cabal of stinking heretics who claim that it is yellow-sack, but these are confined, as always, principally to the Saarland). Clearly it is not biotonne, as it does not biodegrade. It is paper, but not enough to be paper. Therefore, as it is clearly easier to say what it is not, rather than what it is, it must be restmüll.
“Not so!” say the pluralists. “For just as the man in Plato’s cave grasped only at the parts of the elephant’s shadow, one thinking it a Volkswagen and the others a mouse, so you have failed to see the cigarette pack as it is, noumenally speaking- to wit, a collection or intersection of various properties.” The cigarette carton, so this school of philosophy holds, is better thought of as complex trash rather than simple trash. The plastic wrapper around it is clearly yellow-sack. The cardboard-like stiff paper is paper (cardboard is paper but wax paper isn’t), and the foil coated paper inner lining, not being paper, is restmüll. Thus the cigarette pack must be disassembled into its various parts, and each part then consigned to the appropriate receptacle.
Conclusion
Ultimately it all boils down to this. In order to throw your pack of cigarettes away you have to spend a few minutes analyzing it, and then determine whether it is one thing or many things. You must then determine what sort of thing/things this thing is, and then you must actually throw the thing away. This can take upwards of 10 minutes. So what? You ask. Well, not only must you do this for the pack of cigarettes; but for you coffee filter (paper or biotonne?), for the sugar package you poured into your coffee (what is the nature of the interior of the sugar packet, is it coated, if so, with what?), for every single thing that you use or consume in any way. It is discouraging the way reading Kafka is discouraging. Like much in this society, it ultimately leads to paralysis and despair.
However, it is great for a diet. You are much less inclined to eat that candy bar when it turns out to be so little pleasure, for so much work.
