Munich doesn’t want to make any more rubbish – or at least less. At the end of last year, the city signed an application to join the so-called “Zero Waste Europe” network (ZWE). Specifically, this means that Munich wants to develop strategies to waste fewer resources and avoid waste.
While the city is still networking, many residents are already one step further. They no longer throw away the rubbish, but exchange it for another Kruscht. This works particularly well in Munich at the rather unusual exchange stations.
World literature from locker and cell
Looks like a phone booth, but connects the user with the printed word: bookcase on Tulbeckstraße in the West End.
(Photo: Mark Siaulys Pfeiffer)
For those who are enthusiastic about quirky flap designs and strange vector graphics, the metal or glass cabinets that are spread throughout the city on public squares and paths are certainly a real treasure trove. In the open bookcase on the Grüner Markt in Berg am Laim, for example, you can currently borrow “Totentanz” by James Herbert. It is a horror novel in which a parapsychologist wants to solve mysterious deaths. The “T”s in the title of the book are therefore based on crosses, an almost ingenious graphic idea.
Knaur’s cultural guide – “in color” – can hardly keep up, despite Neuschwanstein Castle on the title. Therefore, in this case, it is probably more worth looking at the book than just at the flap, although it is questionable how much knowledge about Germany can be gained from a book from 1976.
A trip to a bookcase is definitely recommended. The first of its kind – a rust-brown metal box – is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. In December 2013 it was set up at Nordbad by the association “Open Bookcases Schwabing-West”. There, for the first time in Munich, the residents of the district were able to exchange reading material anonymously and free of charge. At that time, the bureaucratic hurdles were still quite high and so was the fear that the closet could be misused for what it actually wants to fight against: as a place to dump waste.
The concern has not been confirmed, also in most of the other lockers – now there are around 50 bookcases in the entire urban area – it is orderly. This is ensured by godparents who muck out the closet, for example when hate literature or other dubious material has gotten lost in the open-air library. From the rust-brown pioneer to green, red or gray variants to the telephone booth (Tulbeckstraße 50), the wooden hut (Herrgottseck 2) or the brittle cardboard box – in Munich book exchanges are encouraged in many forms.
Circulation cabinets full of downers
The Moosach exchange niche: There are now seven such recycling cabinets in Munich.
(Photo: Mark Siaulys Pfeiffer)
Hannah Patalong had discovered the boxes with the inscription “For free” more and more often in her environment. She liked the idea of passing on old objects. The Munich “take it with boxes”, on the other hand, she found impractical. “When it rains, everything gets wet and there’s no contact person, because they’ve usually moved away,” she says.
Three years ago, with other comrades-in-arms, she further developed a concept that already existed in isolated cases on private property and in other European cities: the recycling cabinets. These are boxes or houses that are set up in the districts. Everyone can easily store their valuable materials there in order to release them for a new purpose after a short separation phase. Then the 80s ski suit made of balloon silk is ready next to treasures from the living room display case.
“Household items, vases, individual pieces of crockery – just displays, they have an insane circulation. They go away within hours,” says Patalong. Clothes or furniture stand longer. If a piece doesn’t want to sell at all, the closet sponsors place it in classified ads or throw it away. The sponsors are people from the neighborhood who take care of a little house as a team.
In the meantime there are seven such closets all over Munich. The newest is called “Giesinger Perle” and is located at Perlacher Strasse 116. Other locations are already being planned: this year new exchange huts are to be set up in Neuhausen, Schwabing-West, at Mariahilfplatz, in Sendling, Harlaching and in Ramersdorf.
If you are interested in a sponsorship or want to become part of a research project on the effect of the cabinets as a working student, you can contact us at [email protected]. Since attempts are always made to get local clubs and initiatives on board, the cupboards quickly become a meeting place, says Patalong. “The nice thing about it is that it also reaches people who may not be so interested in a sustainable way of life.”
Seeds from the neighbor’s flower pot
Not only plants feel at home in the Ecological Education Center, but also insects. And gardeners who can exchange seeds here at the start of the season.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
Not only since the most recent civil protests about the dwindling diversity of species or the consumption of land has one thing been clear: the people of Munich like it when it stays green and hums around them. So that many different flowers, bushes or vegetables are still native to the city, the Ecological Education Center Munich (ÖBZ) initiated a plant exchange.
On Saturday, May 13, from 2 p.m., registered urban gardeners can pass on surplus young plants, shared perennials or herbs to others and take a plant from the green and colorful palette of the others for their own balcony. New gardeners who are not yet able to trade can also come to the exchange at the environmental education center at Englschalkinger Straße 166 in Bogenhausen.
However, there would still be time to raise one or two little plants. The seeds for this have been available from the Munich City Library for some time. This year, the seed library will start on March 14th in the branches in Giesing, Laim and Ramersdorf. There, varietal seed is “borrowed”.
This means that hobby gardeners can pick up filled bags there free of charge and then put them in the ground at home. The seeds obtained from the harvested vegetables can then be brought back to the libraries in the fall – so that the next season can come.
Salad from the free shop
“A place that works according to the gift economy”: Doro Seror in the free shop “Useful”.
(Photo: Mark Siaulys Pfeiffer)
Commodities or food should remain in society and not end up in the garbage can after their first life, which is why so-called fair share points have been established throughout Munich. Sometimes as a lonely refrigerator in a shop, sometimes as a small shop of his own. One of them is the “Useful” in the creative laboratory on Dachauer Strasse. “It’s a place that works according to the gift economy,” says manager Doro Seror. The artist is involved in the “Zona libre”, an association of artists and cultural workers who voluntarily and free of charge organize cultural events and other activities on the premises of the creative quarter and in the neighborhood.
In addition to the free shop, the members grow regional fruit, vegetables and wild herbs on a field in the Hallertau, for example, which they sell in addition to saved food on two days a week distribute from the “usable” – a garage. On a small green area on the creative quarter site, people also cook together in the “Huberhäuslgarten”. “There is no money. You don’t have to donate anything, you don’t buy anything. Everything should be completely free,” says Seror. Between 20 and 30 people lined up in front of the “Brauchbar” at the time of distribution https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/.”
change clothes
Green City last held a clothing swap party in November last year.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Under the name “Upcycle your style”, the Green City association has been organizing clothing swap parties in Munich at regular intervals for 13 years. Between 10 and 15 used clothes can be brought to the venue and exchanged for others. Everything that has not been passed on will then be donated to the Diakonie. But at the parties, people don’t just barter, they also sew: Last year, old bed sheets were turned into new hair ties. Others have learned from the Munich environmental organization how to shorten pants or how to darn holes properly.