Kempten, Oberallgäu and Lindau, Germany

GENERAL DATA

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL SYSTEM

Legislation & targets

EPR system

Service to the citizens:litres/inhabitants

This is complemented by an in-house information centre at Zak premises, regular tours to the incineration plant with 4000-5000 annual visitors, tutorials for teachers, learning DVDs, a mobile App and an information booth on two annual regional fairs.

21 citizens of the three municipalities have responded to the questionnaire. All respondents feel well or very well informed about how to sort their waste in general and all but one for sorting paper and cardboard. The main sources of information for waste sorting in general and sorting of PfR in particular are the websites of the collector and of the municipality, the information provided on the containers, Leaflets that are distributed to the mailboxes, waste consultants, and the local newspaper.

After the introduction of the door-to-door collection of paper for recycling, the new system quickly gained importance and became the second most used system in the course of the next two years. This led to a parallel decrease of usage of bring banks and recycling yards.

The Paper for Recycling included in the residual waste bin also started to decrease after the introduction of the new system in 2008: In 2008, around 9 % of paper & cardboard was included in the residual waste; in 2011 only 5.5% and by now the amount of paper & cardboard in residual waste is around 4 %.

The total of paper & cardboard in the system seems to be increasing in the past 10 years. This is probably in line with the general increase of cardboard packaging due to change of consumption habits (increase in online shopping, for example).

Paper and cardboard that is collected for recycling is all delivered for recycling to paper mills via local transfer stations. The quality of separately collected paper and cardboard in this territory is very good. The contamination is at 0.5 % of non-paper components and at 2,5 – 4,5% of unwanted papers for graphic paper (grade 1.11.00) when entering the paper mill (after first sorting at the transfer station). The moisture content is 8,5% on average. Packaging paper and mixed PfR has a contamination of 2,0 – 3,0% non-paper components     when entering the sorting plant.    

Out of all Paper for recycling in the municipal waste, roughly 92 % are actually recycled at the end of the process.     

Almost all respondents to the citizens questionnaire (21 in total) are satisfied with the waste management services provided in Kempten, Oberallgäu and Lindau, just two give a neutral answer. Most respondents furthermore agree that the system is transparent, practical, effective, reliable, and that it provides a high quality service and good service for money. Just each one respondent disagrees with some of these attributes, and two disagree with the statement that the system provides good service for money.

When asked what type of measures could simply their sorting efforts, the main measures mentioned were
•    Collection bins that are comfortable for use (size, shape, cleanliness) (mentioned by 9)
•    Collection bins in closer proximity (mentioned by 6)
•    DtD collection (mentioned by 4)
•    More space at home (mentioned by 3)

In addition to the citizens, one respondent from a paper mill and one employee of the WM department at the municipality answered to the targeted questionnaires. The key message of the paper mill was that the percentage of packaging paper is sometimes too high. Consequently he would wish for higher quantities of graphic paper and therefore suggests as an improvement to improve sorting, combine it with quality checks on-site, and to intensify selective collection of graphic paper.