Cologne fights against flood of garbage: garbage in front of Glascontainers accumulates!

Cologne fights against flood of garbage: garbage in front of Glascontainers accumulates!

The city of Cologne has to deal with an increasingly worrying garbage problem. On June 1, 2025, the reader reporter Horst Schneemann reported an incident in Raderberg, who impressively illustrates the situation. On Raderberger Straße, corner of Marktstrasse, there was a true garbage collection right in front of an old glass container. The picture that snowman recorded shows a mixture of textiles, a duvet, a bag, a mattress and a folding chair. Short and scarce - Horst notes that such scenes in Cologne are no longer unusual and expresses his ironic criticism of the fact that more and more rubbish is simply illegally unloaded. Express reports of this problem that spreads like a cancer in the city.

Cologne increasingly sinks into illegally unloaded garbage. According to KStA, the popular places such as Karl-Korn-Straße in Cologne-Korn-Straße are particularly reproductive hotspots of the garbage. Here Olaf Jablonski and Georg Happe from the waste management companies (AWB) Cologne are in constant use to eliminate the legacies of the garbage sinners. In their daily missions, they regularly come across incredible piles of waste: children's furniture, toys, soft toys, car tires, defective music systems - the list seems endless. The garbage, which is stored in various places, costs the city of around 13.5 million euros in disposal costs, which inevitably is reflected in the increasing garbage fees.

garbage sinner in sight

With over 20,000 reports on wild garbage per year, the number of illegal deposits is alarming. "Those responsible are often anonymous," complains Jablonski, who has been working for the AWB for 20 years. The AWB boss Thomas Thalau therefore urgently demands identification of the garbage sinners. These could be confronted with penalties between 50 and 10,000 euros, depending on the amount and type of the disposal material. The sales force of the regulatory office also has the authority to impose up to 55 euros. A special annoyance are also "givaved boxes" that are considered illegal waste disposal if the legacies are not collected again.

The situation in Cologne's room reflects an urgent need for more information and responsibility. If more and more citizens simply unload their garbage, the only question for the everyday life of the city dwellers remains: where should it all lead? Jablonski and Happe work every day against a flood of illegal garbage that spreads in the streets of the city. And the AWB employees also report on a drastic increase in animal carcasses in wild garbage, which brings additional challenges. It remains to be hoped that the city of Cologne, like the responsible institutions, can prove a good knack in solving this problem.