Germany
From Trashwiki
"Containern", as dumpster diving is called in Germany, is just easy - no chemicals and relatively little trouble with police/security (it might depend on a region - for example, the Bavaria land and its main city Munich are more conservative than most of other German lands). Dumpster diving is somehow tolerated, and some vendors from local food markets purposely leave a completely excellent produce so that dumpster divers would have a better and safer meal.
Contents |
[edit] Cities
- Aachen
- Berlin
- Cologne
- Dresden
- Duisburg
- Essen
- Halle
- Hamburg
- Henstedt-Ulzburg
- Karlsruhe
- Kiel
- Leipzig
- Luebeck
- Munich
- Mülheim an der Ruhr
- add more?
[edit] Legal note
First of all, dumpstering in Germany is illegal. You have to know this, and you mustn't be surprised if police comes to check your identity. The best way to deal with these situations is to be conversative: talk to them, explain what you are doing, why you are doing it and ask what is bad about that.
There are known cases of store employees coming out and angrily asking to stop dumpster diving, however, when talked very politely to, they leave dumpster divers in peace (see for more info here, in German).
If you get accused of dumpstering, it might be a good idea to answer "Oh good, I always wanted to tell people why I do that", and you can talk to the supermarket administration about that, do demonstrations while other people are shopping, etc. See more info on workshops for creative anti-repression.
- In December 2008, one dumpster diver arrested for dumpstering.
- December 2009 - lawsuit against 2 dumpster divers in Hamburg/Bad Oldesloe.
[edit] Stuff
In living areas it is quite common to walk the street and find some furniture and other stuff in good shape right on a sidewalk. Some really cool people even include user's manuals and spare parts. A sign that reads "zu verschenken" (which basically means "for taking away") might be attached.
Good stuff doesn't stay very long, and it usually takes one or two days for the city-recyclers to come and clean it up, so be quick.
[edit] See also (in German)
- How to get food for free (not only in Germany)
- Good explanation for first-time dumpster divers
- Very detailed info about getting food for free
- Autoorgawiki: Umsonstökonomie - Dinge und Material umsonst besorgen (getting things for free)
- Anarchopedia: Containern - Secret and open dumpstering
- Building dumpstering networks - Find other people to dumpster together
- A container blog - Short stories about free-shopping and such
- Gewaltfreie Materialbeschaffung
- Basic info about dumpster diving on German Wikipedia
- A campaign to stop causing a destruction
- Kritisches zum containern - Theoretical debates about dumpstering and its social impact
- Anders Leben - Wiki pages about alternative and independent lifestyle (lots of different links to sources providing information on how to get stuff for free, and similar).
- Müllsafari (engl: Trashsafari) - A dumpster diary with pictures and constant updates
- German Dumpster Page

