Let's talk trash! No worries, though. I am referring to taking out the trash. Germans are very environmentally friendly people. They spend a lot of time outdoors, hiking and taking in nature. But they also spend a lot of time protecting it. For an outsider, this can seem overwhelming at first. For example, I have just finished a box of cereal. I have three places I need to store the trash from this box.
We have a total of 8 trash cans, and sometimes need an additional three, but we have been doing without for now. We have the general trash, where used napkins, paper towels, tissues, etc. can go. Then we have the bio trash (they say bee-o). This is where any food scraps or things that are biodegradable must go. Then there is small paper and cardboard, small plastics containers (like yogart cups), foils and aluminum, milks cartons and cardboard juice containers, glass, small plastics and blister packs that lunch meat or cheese may come in, large plastics bigger than a sheet of paper (like plastic bags and shrink wrap from larger items), large cardboard and paper products, and then newspapers. We have a general trash and bio trash pick-up for our whole building, but the rest of the trash has to be taken to the designated spots within town. Throughout the city are these large dumpster like receptacles where you can put everything but your large paper/cardboard and your plastics. Those have to be taken to the recycling center, and there are two of those on either side of the outskirts of town. That leads me back to the box of cereal I finished. For our trashcans, it went into bio (crumbs from the bottom of the box), plastics (the bag the cereal was in) and cardboard (the box). Can you think of ways you can be more environmentally friendly with your trash? Want to start a recycling movement at the school? Ask your teacher to see how you all can also help the environment.
They are not only careful about their trash, but also their water, their use of electricity and the source of their electricity, their cars and how much gas they use, the type of gas they use, and the source of their food. In a future blog, I'll have some pictures of the cars and talk a little more about driving in Germany. For electricity, they use wind power and natural gas along with nuclear energy, water flow energy and coal. You will see solar panels on many homes in the countryside as well as on some buildings. They have become so efficient with generating electricity, that they export more than they import. But all this comes with a price - Germans pay some of the highest rates in the EU.
Now onto the answer of the the day for yesterday: When did Germany join the EU? Well, it depends. According to Wikipedia, WEST Germany along with France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands formed the precursors to the EU in 1951 at the signing of the Treaty of Paris (bonus question - what was the Treaty of Paris?) In 1993, however, the official EU as we know it today was created and now has 27 total members.
Today's word of the day is a 2 for 1 - Trash: in German it could be either der Müll or der Abfall. This would be like our two words being garbage and trash. I have not yet figured out which one is used more commonly, though. Notice the u in the first word. The two dots over the u are called an Umlaut. They indicate that the sound of the word should change a little. Müll is pronounced Meull (kinda like saying meow but ending it with an L sound) and Abfall is pronounced Ahb-fall.
Today's question in preparation for Friday night football is: What do Germans call American football versus soccer?
