Martin Hikel (SPD) recently had large, bright yellow price tags printed with “€ 375” in black. The district mayor of Berlin-Neukölln distributed the signs with the cargo bike in his neglected district – on illegally dumped bulky waste.
“€ 375” for the sofa on the roadside, “€ 375” for the broken washing machine in the bushes next to the stained mattress: that’s how much the city costs and thus the taxpayer every single, wild pile of rubbish that has to be laboriously cleared away.
The already clammy Neukölln had to spend more than 1.2 million euros in 2020 to dispose of almost 11,000 cubic meters of illegal bulky waste. That corresponds to a mountain each 20 meters high, long and wide. And Berlin is not alone. Wild garbage and neglect is a problem nationwide, even before Corona, but the situation has worsened.
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