Waste separation in Germany: which bin, and how Pfand works

2 min read · 7 steps · Updated 2 October 2026

Germans sort their rubbish at home, and neighbours and landlords notice when someone does not. The colours of the bins differ a little between towns, so look at the stickers on the bins of your building. The logic behind them is the same everywhere.

Rules, amounts and deadlines change. Check the official source named at the end before you act, and ask the office in your city, because procedures differ from town to town.

Step by step

1. Yellow bin or yellow bag: light packaging

   Everything that is packaging and is not made of glass or paper: plastic wrappers and bags, yoghurt pots, tins, aluminium foil, and drink cartons such as milk cartons. Empty them, but you do not need to wash them.

   Done

2. Blue bin: paper and cardboard

   Newspapers, envelopes, boxes folded flat. In some towns this bin is green. Dirty or greasy paper, such as a used pizza box, goes in the residual waste.

   Done

3. Brown bin: organic waste

   Fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and tea bags, eggshells, leaves and flowers. No plastic bags, not even the ones sold as compostable, unless your town allows them.

   Done

4. Black or grey bin: residual waste

   What cannot be recycled: hygiene articles, nappies, cigarette ends, broken porcelain, dirty packaging, vacuum cleaner bags.

   Done

5. Glass containers in the street

   Jars and bottles without a deposit go into the containers for white, brown and green glass. Blue and other colours go to green. Throwing glass in is forbidden before 8 in the morning and after 8 in the evening, and in most places on Sundays and public holidays, because of the noise.

   Done

6. Take deposit bottles back

   The deposit (Pfand) is 25 cents on single-use plastic bottles and cans, 15 cents on most reusable glass and plastic bottles, and 8 cents on beer bottles. Supermarkets have a return machine that prints a voucher for the till. Shops that sell such drinks have to take the empties back.

   Done

7. Everything else has its own place

   Batteries and light bulbs: collection boxes in supermarkets, chemists and DIY stores. Electrical devices: the recycling centre (Wertstoffhof) or large electronics shops. Medicines, paint and chemicals: the collection point for hazardous waste. Usable clothes: clothing containers. Furniture and other bulky waste (Sperrmüll): book a collection with your town or take it to the recycling centre.

   Done

Good to know

Dumping rubbish in the street or in nature is punished with fines that can reach thousands of euros. Wrong sorting can lead to the bins of the whole house not being emptied, at the tenants' cost.

Your town publishes a collection calendar (Abfallkalender) with the days for each bin, often as an app.

Residual waste is the expensive bin. The more you sort, the lower the service charges of the house.

More on those charges: rental contracts in Germany: deposit, notice and costs explained.

In short: Yellow for packaging, blue for paper, brown for organic, black for the rest, glass by colour in street containers between 8 and 8, Pfand back to the shop.