Berliners generated less waste last year. According to the Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR), the city’s municipal waste management company, the amount of waste collected from private households and small businesses fell by two percent in 2025 compared with the previous year, despite the growing population. The total dropped to 775,600 tonnes. Per capita, waste fell to just over 200 kilograms per year, continuing a long-term trend. Just eight years ago, BSR waste collectors disposed of almost 40,000 tonnes less household waste.

The Berlin Senate has also observed this trend across all types of waste. The latest annual report on the implementation of the Waste Management Strategy 2020–2030 records a two percent decrease across 35 different types of waste between 2022 and 2024, bringing the total to around five million tonnes. Almost half of this consists of construction rubble and other mineral waste. According to Ute Bonde (CDU), the outgoing Senator for the Environment, the city is broadly in line with its plans. “The report shows that Berlin is on track with its zero-waste strategy. Most measures are underway, and we are achieving the targets we set for household and commercial waste. The key remains preventing waste from being generated in the first place and separating recyclable materials properly.”

The Potential Red-Green-Red Coalition Wants to Expand Waste Recycling

The emerging coalition, however, is sceptical. In their exploratory agreement, the Left, Greens and SPD have committed to further developing the waste management strategy with the goal of expanding recycling infrastructure and achieving zero waste. Berlin is still some way from achieving a functioning circular economy in which materials are recycled as extensively as possible. According to the Senate report, 47 percent of the total waste was recycled, and 26 percent was recovered for energy through incineration, leaving more than a quarter of Berlin’s waste without a suitable zero-waste solution.

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The sharp decline in rubble, bricks, sand and other construction waste is particularly striking. Only 334,000 tonnes of construction waste were produced in 2024, just one-third of the amount collected from building sites ten years earlier, easing what had previously been a difficult waste disposal situation. The Senate report also identifies considerable room for improvement in recycling these materials. So far, three-quarters of this waste ends up in landfill sites. Another 16 percent is processed and used in road construction, while 9 percent is used to fill various types of excavations and holes.

Bulky waste is also politically relevant. One goal of the exploratory teams from the Left, Greens and SPD is to make it easier for people to dispose of old furniture and other unwanted items. Everyone is to be offered one free bulky waste collection day per year to discourage people from leaving their rubbish on the streets. BSR has recently handled just over 62,000 tonnes of bulky waste a year, with volumes remaining stable. Although most of it is sorted for recyclable material at BSR’s bulky waste processing facility, almost all of it ultimately ends up in the waste incinerator in Ruhleben or in combined heat and power plants.

Berlin to Consider a Packaging Tax

The Greens in particular want to introduce a packaging tax in Berlin, similar to the one that has been in force in neighbouring Potsdam since the beginning of October. The exploratory agreement includes a commitment to examine the proposal. The Senate report also covers separately collected lightweight packaging, which consists mainly of various plastics. The amount collected and sorted at the facility on Hultschiner Damm has increased by four percent over two years. So far, half of this packaging ends up in cement plants or blast furnaces. Mainly metals and some plastics are recycled.

This text was originally written and published on the 22nd of October in German. It was translated into English with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).