Cologne is fighting against the flood of garbage: rubbish is piling up in front of glass containers!

Cologne is fighting against the flood of garbage: rubbish is piling up in front of glass containers!

The city of Cologne is struggling with an increasingly worrying waste problem. On June 1, 2025, reader reporter Horst Schneemann reported on an incident in Raderberg that impressively illustrates the situation. On Raderberger Strasse, at the corner of Marktstrasse, there was a veritable accumulation of rubbish right in front of a used glass container. The image that Schneemann took shows a mix of textiles, a duvet, a bag, a mattress and a folding chair. Short and sweet - Horst states that such scenes are no longer unusual in Cologne and expresses his ironic criticism of the fact that more and more rubbish is simply being dumped illegally. Express reports on this problem, which is spreading like a cancer in the city.

Cologne is increasingly drowning in illegally dumped garbage. According to KSTA, popular places such as Karl-Korn-Straße in Cologne's Südstadt are particularly reproductive hotspots for garbage. Here, Olaf Jablonski and Georg Happe from the waste management companies (AWB) in Cologne are constantly on duty to clean up the waste left behind by rubbish sinners. During their daily missions, they regularly come across sometimes unbelievable piles of rubbish: children's furniture, toys, stuffed animals, car tires, defective music systems - the list seems endless. The garbage that is dumped in various places costs the city around 13.5 million euros in disposal costs every year, which is inevitably reflected in the increasing garbage fees.

Waste offenders in the sights

With over 20,000 reports of wild garbage per year, the number of illegal dumping is alarming. “Those responsible are often anonymous,” complains Jablonski, who has worked for AWB for 20 years. The AWB boss Thomas Thalau is therefore urgently calling for the waste offenders to be identified. They could face fines of between 50 and 10,000 euros, depending on the amount and type of material disposed of. The public order office's field staff also have the authority to impose a warning fine of up to 55 euros. A particular nuisance are “give-away boxes”, which are considered illegal waste disposal if the waste is not collected again.

The situation in the Cologne area reflects an urgent need for more education and responsibility. If more and more citizens simply dump their garbage, the only question that remains for the everyday life of city residents is: Where will it all lead? Jablonski and Happe work day after day to combat the flood of illegal garbage that is spreading across the city's streets. And the AWB employees also report a drastic increase in animal carcasses in the wild waste, which brings additional challenges. It remains to be hoped that the city of Cologne, as well as the responsible institutions, can demonstrate a good hand in solving this problem.