How many disposable cups end up in the trash every day in Munich? These are the kinds of questions that are being discussed on this day at the elementary school on Führichstrasse in Ramersdorf. The garbage truck stops there. The interactive learning project of the Munich Waste Management Company (AWM) and the Children’s Museum has been visiting students from third to sixth grade since 2019 and teaches children about waste separation and recycling cycles.
Now it has been expanded and adapted to the city’s zero-waste goals. The new offer makes it possible to attend 84 school classes per year instead of the previous 40, explains local authority officer and AWM plant manager Kristina Frank (CSU).
On this day she came to school together with Mayor Verena Dietl (SPD), representatives of the Munich Children’s Museum and the mascot Toni Streithörnchen to present the new garbage mobile with interactive research stations.
Dietl emphasizes that children’s environmental education makes an important contribution to achieving Munich’s zero-waste goals by 2035 and producing 35 percent less residual waste. “With your commitment, we can do this and do something important for environmental protection,” she says to the fourth graders.
While sorting waste together, Frank organizes a waste quiz with the children. This is where the question of the number of disposable cups thrown away comes into play: there are 190,000 per day in the city. “That’s really rubbish. We don’t need that,” says the local authority representative and encourages the children to think about alternatives. “The best waste is the one that doesn’t happen,” she summarizes.
Sibylle Schnapp from the Munich Children’s Museum helped develop the garbage mobile and is supervising the class during the project. “Children of that age have the ambition to do it right. They often know better than adults,” she says. In addition to learning through play at the garbage truck stations, projects such as clean-up activities in the park are also planned, in which children can see what garbage can be found there and how best to dispose of it. Schnapp says it’s about getting the children to question their own behavior: “I want to let them know that they can take responsibility for themselves.”