Germany is divided into states, just like America. I come from the state of Minnesota. Now I am staying in the Federal State of Germany called North Rhine-Westphalia (sometimes you see it written as NRW). Over 18 million people live in this part of Germany. Minnesota has just over 5 million people. So you see, NRW has a lot more people than Minnesota.

Düsseldorf is the capital, just like St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota. There are a lot of people living in Düsseldorf. In fact, there are 6,949 people per square mile in this city. That is a lot of people!

Clever people have figured out ways to stuff so many people into a city and still make it nice. They kept the big trees lining the streets. Flowers grow in window boxes, and in the tiny, tiny yards in front of apartment buildings. The trains move many people quickly and easily from home to work.

But what do you do with the garbage from so many people? If you left it in garbage cans, the streets would be full of garbage cans in a hurry. German people decided to do some special things to help out with the garbage. There are no pop cans in NWR. No beverage cans of any kind.

Pop, water, and other drinks may be bought in glass or plastic. You pay a deposit on pop bottles. When you return your empty plastic bottles at the grocery store you get money back. As much garbage as possible is recycled.

So, on every other street corner you see these big grey containers. They are labeled: brown glass, green glass, white glass, and paper. When people walk to the train, they bring their recycling with them and drop them in. Then at night big trucks come and take away the grey containers and leave new empty ones.

And Düsseldorf stays clean and pretty.