German Trash-How to Recycle

So, in Germany you have to pay for your trash to be picked up.  Lots of landlords include the trash fee into your rent.  It could get pricey, depending on your location, due to recycling being a German law. On average I've been told families could pay around 10-30 euro a month for trash.


When we moved into our house, figuring out the trash schedule seemed daunting, but it's actually not that difficult once you have a little knowledge on the subject. 


Due to recycling being the law in Germany, there are some guidelines necessary for success. 
First, there are yellow bags.  We live and die by these yellow bags;)  What goes into the yellow bags?

Cans, plastic, polystyrene, aluminum, tinplate and "composite" materials like beverage cartons made of a mixture of materials. 
In my house we have a full sized trash can that holds a yellow trash bag.  My kids know what goes into the yellow recycling trash can.  But, before they got the hang of it I kept a list of items that go into the yellow bag taped to the side of the trash can for their reference. (soda cans, juice boxes, tin foil, plastic wrap, etc.)

Yellow bags can be picked up at city hall or you can leave a really nice note on your trash can when your 'food' trash is taken requesting more yellow trash bags from the garbage man.  Simply put a sign out on your trash can stating "Mehr Gelbes Sacks, Bitte".  This does not always mean that your garbage man will have them to give to you OR that he/she will feel like being courteous and leave the yellow bags for you.  This should be a back up plan if you are not able to get to the town hall/city hall in your area and pick some up.


Paper and cardboard: Recycle paper and cardboard in the large blue containers or in a designated residential bin for paper items, depending on one's location.
We have a large blue topped trashcan that is for our paper and cardboard.  We break down all of it so that we can have plenty of room for all of the paper recycling in the blue recycling trash can. 

On our trash can on the right you can see a small, white rectangle sticker on the side.  On this sticker is a bar code our trash man scans verifying we pay for our trash to actually be picked up by him/her. ( I didn't take a close up due to it having our address listed on it).

For example:  If you finish a box of cereal-take out the plastic bag that the cereal was in and put that empty plastic bag into the yellow trash bag.  Then take the cereal box, break it down, and put that into your blue recycling trash bin.


Trash:  What constitutes trash?  Due to ALL the recycling in Germany, what you are left with (if you recycle correctly) is mostly the "other stuff" and biological waste.  This includes kitchen scraps, peels, leftover food, coffee filters, tea bags, garden waste, etc.  Your trash should go into your trash can supplied by your landlord.  This trash can should have a bar code somewhere on it that the garbage collector scans (see above picture).  Each trash can has to be registered in order to let you throw out your trash (your landlord should handle this for you).  That is why you pay a trash fee-when you pay for your trash you are registering your trash can and when the garbage man takes your trash and scans it, there is electronic verification that you paid for it to be picked up.


Glass: Glass items, to include bottles and jars, need to be separated according to their color and recycled in appropriate containers in a resident's community. The three categories for separating glass are brown; white or clear; and green and all other colors. You will see every few blocks large silver metal bins, about 5 feet tall, that have small holes in the tops of them to deposit your glass jars.  The labeling on the bins is super easy to know which color glass item goes into which bin because the signs are brown, green, and white;)

See how the left sticker is brown, the middle is white and the far right one has a green sticker?

Bulk trash: Larger items, including furniture, mattresses, carpets, rugs or bicycles, may be placed outside on bulk trash pickup days. If a resident does not know the collection schedule, they can ask their landlord or neighbors when bulk trash is collected.  Bulk trash is usually scheduled 2 times a year. 



Each county or village area should have a trash schedule posted online.  When all else fails, just look to see when your neighbors put out which trash and follow suit.


Here is what the 2015 trash schedule looks like for the Eifel area.  Do not get overwhelmed.  Below the chart is a breakdown of how to read this thing.;)

Sorry for the poor picture quality-my computer was having issues, so I had to take a picture of my screen:/

First of all, find your village.  For our purposes, lets choose one:  Speicher.
Speicher is the last village listed on this chart.  You will see that there are very light greyed out dates, blue and yellow dates, and orange dates.
The light greyed out dates are your trash days:  i.e.  the 'other stuff' and biological waste.
The blue and yellow dates are your recycling days:  your yellow bags should be set out the night before and your blue paper/cardboard bins/trash cans set out as well. 
The orange dates are your bulk trash pick up days:  furniture, carpets, etc.
So, for Speicher it read like this (for 2015): 
           Trash days:  January 5, 19
                                February 2, 17
                                March 2, 16, 28
                                April 13, 27
          Recycling days (yellow bags and blue paper/cardboard bins): 
                               January 12, 13
                               February 9, 10
                               March 9, 10
                               April 7, 8
          Bulk trash days: 
                              January 27, 28
                              May 12, 13
                              September 29, 30

***Please note this is my personal experience and suggestions, but may not apply to everyone or every village***



Eifel Trash Schedule Online-http://www.bitburg-pruem.de/cms/images/stories/Entsorgungskaledner_Speicher_mit_Vorblatt_Hosten.pdf

Organizing Kids Toys

It seems like I reorganize the kids toys in the living room play area about once a month.  So, why would today be any different...
I also brought the toy baskets from my son's bookshelf in his room to make sure that all the small toys in the house were organized at once. 
Let the organizing begin.

BASKETS!  I have found over the years that baskets are the best way to try to keep toys contained and some what organized.  I tried great big toy boxes, but lots of little toys get lost at the bottom and some never even get played with because they are lost in the bottom of the cavernous toy box.  Book shelves are great for putting toys up and out of the way and off the floor.   If you add baskets into the organizing mix, then all is well in the world.

To start, we laid out all the baskets and toys and then started designating which baskets held what.  For example:  a basket for dinosaurs, a basket for action figures and army men, a basket for characters from the 'Cars' movie, etc.   By the way, I bought these blue and green baskets at the dollar store about 2 years ago and LOVE them!!!!!  They are a great way to organize, are durable, and have handles on them so the kids can easily grab a whole basket and take it to another location to play.  They work out great and for only $1 who cold ask for anything more. 

I had previously made laminated labels for the baskets to help the kids put the toys in the proper baskets when cleaning up.  The labels started to curl up on the edges so I made some new ones.

To make the labels I just went on clipart and copied and pasted some pictures for the appropriate toys on cardstock and printed them up.  Simple as that.

One of the labels I made a year ago-notice the curling of the edges

Here are the new labels

It doesn't look too much different than before because of my constant upkeep. 

Before

after

But, having all the baskets labeled properly and every toy in its place makes for easy play and cleanup.

What are your tips or ways to organize your kids toys?

Household Containers for Art Supplies

Don't throw out those egg cartons!  I've got a couple of household containers I love to reuse.  It's handy, cheap, 'green', and I've almost always got them in the house.

EGG CARTONS

These are THE BEST paint pallets for kids. I just cut the cardboard egg cartons into thirds, distribute the paint, and the kids go at it.  Love this!  I used to save the plastic icing containers that came with the Grands Cinnamon Buns but those just get tossed around everywhere in my craft bins, so I like these more.  Plus, when the kids are done, I just toss them in the trash.  How's that for easy clean up?

    

SWIFFER REFILL CONTAINERS

I also use the Swiffer alot and the containers that hold the wet swiffer refills are awesome for storage.  I rinse and dry them out and then store art supplies, first aid items for the car, Christmas ornaments in the extra large wet swiffer refill containers, etc.  The possibilities are endless!

Garage Make Over

So, my husband had to go out of town for a week for work.  What's a gal to do?...Make over his garage (a.k.a. "men's den")
This "men's den" was not very true to it's name.  So I thought I would do my best to straighten it up without defiling it with a woman's touch.

Here is the before:

A cluttered mess

My motto was to try to organize (with a secret mission of making more space for my growing stockpile)
Rule of thumb for revamping a garage:  If it can be hung, hang it.
I scurried off to Lowe's, with my daughter in tow, and bought a few shelving units and lots of heavy duty hooks. 
After 3 days of non stop hanging, anchoring (you must anchor!), sweeping, vacuuming, etc.  Here is the end result.

(Notice my small shelf of overflowing stockpile from the laundry room stash.)

(the Christmas decoration boxes are still out so once they are put away, it'll be a little less cluttered)

I must say, I am super pleased! 

It's not perfect, but it is much better.  We have a lot more work to do, but we had to start somewhere.

On a side note, the hubby was super surprised and liked his newly refreshed "men's den".

Top 5 Things for Easy (Easier) Mornings

As a stay at home mother, most days seem to start out the same.
However, some are hectic, some have appointments, and some are easier than others. 

Here are my top 5 ways to make your mornings a little easier.

1.  Say a small prayer before you even get out of bed.  Mine usually goes a little something like this "Dear Lord, help me to have patients, understanding, and endurance to make it gracefully through this day.  Amen."

2.  Get up 10 minutes earlier than usual.  I know, I know!  Sounds insane to rob yourself of 10 more minutes of extra beauty sleep.  But...it will be so worth it.
Some moms get up with their kids and somehow take showers while their munchkins are watching morning TV.  I like to get up before my kids so that I can be showered, fueled with coffee, and ready to go before my kids even wake up. 
Setting my alarm 10 minutes earlier than what I really need helps me to not feel rushed, let me do my hair if I feel like not being a ponytail queen for the day (like usual), have an uninterrupted cup of coffee, check my email/facebook, and or do my devotions.  Aaahhhh, love those 10 extra minutes just for myself.

The following are to be done the night before so that you can have an easier morning...

3.  Set your coffee pot on to automatically start right when you are getting up.  I personally love smelling my priceless coffee wafting upstairs while I am getting out of the shower.  Yeah!

4.  Even though you are super tired, put a load of laundry on.  This way it washes while you sleep and all you have to do is put it in the dryer after your morning coffee and you are already one step ahead of the game.

5.  This one goes hand in hand with number 4.  Because you will feel too tired at night.  However, before you go to bed load the dishwasher and turn it on.  This way you wake up to a clean (or semi clean) kitchen without a huge sink full of dirty dishes.  How many times have we come into the kitchen on a busy morning and think "shucks!" because just the dirty sink dishes alone can make a clean kitchen feel cluttered and filthy.

These are my saving graces on some mornings.  I will admit, I do not always do them all myself.  But, when I do, I feel like I can conquer the day.

Happy Brewing!