Autofrie Biking and Talkin' Trash

Today was the first day we felt like we actually "went out and did something"! On certain Sundays throughout the spring and summer the roads are closed to motor vehicles; they are referred to as autofrei (auto-free) days. Today we biked along the Moselle River and its vineyards. The villages along the route offer music, food, drinks and festivities. We got a late start but were able to enjoy a few hours biking, a cold beer and a braut with our friends Andy and Jo. Here are a few snapshots of our day ...

Kelty rode with Daddy today ... and had to wear mommy's helmet! Daddy forgot Kelty's helmet and after a VERY angry mommy calmed down we were able to fit my helmet for Kelty.

The Mosselle River

Stopping for a quick bite ... it started to rain and we still had to bike back to the car!

Ok, time for a dose of "German Living". They take recycling very serious in Germany. One of the most stressful things about our first couple of days in our house was how to properly dispose of our trash! Trash is separated into ... Restmull (normal trash), Geiber Sack/Yellow Bag (aluminum, plastic, metal, foam and combined material recyclables), Biotonne (food scraps, grass clipping, etc), and Paper/Cardboard. Glass is also recycled but we have to take it down to the recycling center ourselves. So ... if you live in FL you're probably used to trash pick-up twice a week ... not the case here! Normal trash and the Geiber Sacks are picked up every two weeks; the Bio is picked up every two weeks alternating with the normal trash; the Paper bin is picked up once a month! So let's put trash into photo's ....

This what we have under our kitchen sink to separate trash ... this is so we don't have to walk outside to our separate bins every time we throw something away! The red basket is where we throw all recyclables including paper and glass ... when it gets full we carry it outside and seperate it into the proper bins/bags. The white trash can is for normal trash but the little basket sets in it for our food scraps. The black bags are the equivalent of the black trash bin but the bags are rationed to us because of Kelty's diapers. We get 26 bags per year to accomodate for the extra trash we produce with soiled diapers ... otherwise we would have to pay extra.

The big blue bin is for paper/cardboard and gets picked up every two weeks. The small black bin is for our normal trash ... it holds roughly two bags worth of garbage and is picked up every other week. Unfortunately we missed our trash pick-up (it was moved up a day ... but we didn't know that!) Now it's a whole 2 weeks until it gets picked up again!

These yellow sacks hold our recyclable waste ... this is where we separate stuff from red bin from under the sink ... except paper, we take that to the blue bin. The little gray bin is where we are putting our glass for now.

I didn't take a photo of the brown, bio bin ... it's the same size as the blue bin. That one can get nasty holding two weeks worth of food scraps! I purchased mini-biodegradable bags to line the little basket that I keep under the sink ... that way I can wrap up the bio every couple of days and throw the bag into the big bio bin ... otherwise we would be dealing with stench, maggots and a foul smelling bio bin!

And that's talkin' trash!