Berlin's Poor Collect Bottles to Make Ends Meet

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,823409,00.html



To see Günther rummaging through trash cans in Berlin, you might assume he was homeless. But the 61-year-old is actually one of a growing number of pensioners looking to earn extra cash through bottle recycling.

Significant numbers of financially destitute people are now resorting to collecting discarded glass and plastic bottles, which carry a redeemable cash deposit, as a means of supplementing their income. But whereas the majority of those collecting used to be the homeless, alcoholics and drug addicts, more recently it is Berlin's pensioners and long-term unemployed who are increasingly turning to the practice in order to make ends meet.

The number of pensioners resorting to bottle collecting has doubled in the last couple of years. Social experts are warning that the unhygienic practice is a symptom of an inadequate social system struggling to cope with the growing population of elderly residents in the German capital.

Social Contact

"People just throw the bottles away anyway, so why not make a bit of money out of it?" says Günther, who did not want to be identified by his last name. The former mechanic was forced into early retirement due to illness and has been collecting bottles in his local district of Tempelhof for the last few years. He says his pension of €700 ($920) per month is simply not enough to provide a decent standard of living. He can earn up to €5 per day through bottle collecting, money which he spends on food and drink.

[DJ13]

1. They didnt need to go to Germany to see that

Every rural community in the US has the same thing.

Heck, my wife's employer has refused to give any raises for the last 3 years (while spending hundreds of thousands on building upgrades), and its getting so bad there I've seen employees digging in the trash cans for cans and bottles to make up the difference.

[Mz Pip]

2. I've seen it here

and were in an urban environment.

[RZM]

3. At my college, the frat houses basically weren't allowed to have kegs at their parties

Instead it was mass quantities of beer in cans and bottles. Most would leave their doors open the next morning and allow the local poor to come in and take all of the empties. It was basically a win-win for both parties. The locals would get to collect as many cans and bottles as they could and the frat houses got most of the post-party cleaning done for them. Saturday and Sunday mornings you'd frequently see people driving around town in trucks with the beds filled to the brim with cans and bottles.

And this was in Ohio. In places like Michigan, where you make even more per bottle or can, I'll bet there's even more competition for the empties.

[SOS]

4. My aunt lives in the former East Berlin

Prior to 1989, she was employed as a dental hygienist.
She had a nice one-bedroom apartment with a terrace overlooking a beautiful park.
She had a television, washing machine, telephone and Trabant car.
She never lacked food.
Health care was free.
Her apartment was essentially free. She paid a tiny sum every month.
Her education was free.
Her mothers nursing home was free.
Public transit was about a penny a ride.
There was no crime.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, she has lost everything.

She was laid off as superfluous labor. She could not afford her home at free market rates.
She sold her car for nothing (nobody wanted Trabants anymore).
Her pension under the new system is inadequate to live.
She cannot afford enough food every month.
She has been mugged.
Most recently she lived in a rented room with no money and no possessions.
My letters are now returned as "addressee moved, no forwarding address"
She is 67 years old.

I write this because we never hear about the effects of "winning the cold war". According to a poll in Spiegel magazine, 56% of people in the former GDR want the old system back.

It pains me to think she might be digging around in garbage cans to buy a meal.