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The European capital cities, Berlin and London, running the third and the fourth richest economies in the world, both produce about a metric ton of rubbish for each household per year．But when it comes to disposing of their citizens’ waste, the comfortable similarities end．
London, and Britain as a whole, is in the middle of a waste crisis．Today, the environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, is presiding over a waste summit to try to find out why the UK is not going to reach its 25％ recycling and composting(转制成堆肥)target by 2005; currently, it is managing 11％．
By comparison, Berlin and Germany know exactly where they are going．Although Berlin has been the capital for less than a decade, and has had east and west to unite, it has already reached 40％ recycling．The city has one ambition：to have no rubbish to dump or burn in 20 year’s time．So far, the city has not decided quite how, but it is developing new technologies and moving steadily in the right direction．London, by comparison, has a chaotic system．The 33 boroughs all have different recycling systems．
Ken Livingstone, who since taking office as mayor has published a brand-new waste management strategy for the capital, is responsible for sorting out this hotch potch(杂乱的一堆东西)．One of the most contentious issues both for London and Berlin is incineration(焚烧), with both cities burning a large proportion of their waste－London 20％ and Berlin 32％．
Here again Berlin has made decisions and London is uncertain．Berlin has a state of the art incinerator in the 1970s and upgraded constantly until in the 1990s it is impossible to detect any emissions but warm gases．The city has abandoned plans to build another and instead wants to make the existing one redundant by reducing the waste so there is none to burn．
London boroughs have plans to increase the size of the incinerator at Edmonton and there are plans to build more elsewhere．But Livingstone is resisting and the government is already rethinking its current energy from waste policy．
Samantha Heath, the chair of Greater London Authority’s environment committee, wants to invest in the market for recycled goods so there is somewhere for the material to go and a prospect of selling it, or at least disposing of it for less than the price of incineration or landfill
Ingolf Rank, spokesman for Berlin’s City Cleaning company has some advice：“The first task is to get the public on your side．” Each household has to pay 40 pounds every three months to dispose of its rubbish．In future, the less they create, the more they recycle and compost, the less they will have to pay, he says．
Each house in Berlin has a series of different coloured bins for refuse so glass, paper and plastics can be separated for recycling．This allows 800 000 tonnes of rubbish a year to be turned back into useful items．
But Berlin has ideas that have not ever been heard of in London．For example, at this time of year, thousands of trees that line Berlin’s streets shed their leaves．Rather than put these leaves into general rubbish and add to the problems of disposal, they are collected up in large vacuum cleaners and turned into garden compost．Most of London has no composting service at all．
Another system that stops material even being called rubbish is a collection service for second-hand furniture and electrical goods less than seven years old．Each offering is inspected, taken to a central shop, and sold at low cost to poorer people．It saves a lot of material being dumped．
Not all goes according to plan in Berlin, however．Rank says that people dump waste in the streets, like mattresses, old furniture or just general rubbish cost the city 2.8 million pounds a year．
One problem the city has tried to solve but failed, is the excreta of 150 000 dogs．Rank says it is the owners’ responsibility to clean up after their pets but police who tried enforce the law were “sometimes bitten(by the dogs), insulted by the owners and even beaten up．As a result we still have to clean up 40 tonnes of droppings every day．Nobody is happy about that．”
