The sight of yellow bags on the side of the road, in which people dispose of empty yoghurt pots and other plastic packaging, among other things, could become quite rare in the future. Because the storage depots in many German cities have been empty for a few weeks - and a replenishment is far from in sight. The consequence: from now on, the yellow bags will be rationed even more strictly. Will there soon be no more yellow bags? We explain to you what is behind the supply bottleneck of the yellow sacks!
For these reasons, yellow bags are in short supply
Would you have thought: every citizen, whether baby or senior, causes an unbelievable 35 kilograms of packaging waste in Germany every year. This corresponds to an annual requirement of around 13 yellow bags - i.e. around one bag per month. An immense need that first has to be met. So it doesn't seem too surprising that the yellow bags might not be enough at some point. But the alarmingly high amount of waste generated by Germans is not the real reason why the yellow bags are gradually running out in many places.
Lack of material and logistics problems with the required types of plastic LDPE and HDPE are currently causing bottlenecks and, regrettably, there is still no sign of a quick relaxation, as the news portal "Die Welt" recently reported. When asked by "Welt", Andreas Bruckschen, Managing Director of the Federal Association of German Waste Management, Water and Raw Materials Management, also commented. He says: "There are production downtimes and ordered goods are currently not being delivered on time."
Yellow bags are becoming scarce worldwide
Yellow bags are not only in short supply on the German market at the moment. Because according to several reports, the problem probably exists worldwide. However, many European sack manufacturers are complaining about supply problems and are therefore hardly able to serve or accept orders. As a result, the production lines are standing still in many places. Anyone who thinks that the sacks produced or the corresponding materials can simply be imported from other parts of the world (e.g. China) is greatly mistaken. Because either the corresponding transport capacities are missing or the production facilities are also affected by supply problems. Many factories in China were at a standstill because the power was simply turned off in many parts of the country.
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But it should be some time before the situation calms down worldwide. Bruckschen says to the "world": "We assume that there will be a backlog that will probably only resolve in the spring of 2022." Accordingly, the municipalities and consumers have to be economical with their remaining stock.
Municipalities confirm supply bottleneck
Many municipalities also confirm that yellow bags are currently in very short supply. Because of the lack of raw materials, they no longer receive any deliveries. The city of Neumünster explains the scarcity of the yellow bags to its citizens as follows: "As in many other areas, the procurement of raw materials is currently difficult on the market. This applies to deliveries from Europe, and deliveries from China are currently not in evidence either ." Since the first replenishment of yellow bags is not expected until March 2022, many municipalities, the city of Sundern, the district of Freising and the city of Neumünster are asking their citizens to be economical. The delivery of new bags is therefore strictly reduced. One roll would then be handed out to each household.
Pretty tight when you consider that one person consumes an incredible 13 Yellow Bags per year. Families have to keep an eye on their waste production by March. But what happens if the yellow bags run out anyway? Do people then have to sink into the garbage? No, because many municipalities are already pointing out that other transparent garbage bags may be used as an alternative until the situation calms down. The replacement bags must be transparent for the reason that no foreign matter ends up in the waste disposal.
But who knows, maybe there's something good about the shortage of yellow bags. Because the missing garbage bags will certainly make one or the other person aware of the high volume of waste and perhaps make them rethink.
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Sources: welt.de and shz.de
