Domestic waste recycling Munich

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From the south-westerly direction, the height of the bed of the plan is clearly visible.

The household waste recycling München GmbH was next to similar institutions in Budapest and Chicago among the first companies to industrial waste separation and recycling. It was built at the end of the 19th century and was in operation until 1949.

history

In 1891, the garbage can system was introduced in Munich. In order to be able to reliably deposit the garbage that regularly arises from this, Hausmüllverwertung München GmbH was founded on July 27, 1897. Your task was to receive the garbage, sort it and deposit it. Puchheim Bahnhof was chosen as the location for the sorting system , at that time little more than a small train station far outside the city and in the middle of the moor. The GmbH acquired 85 hectares of land there and began building the household waste factory. In the same year, the management building for Julius Einhorn , workers' accommodation, kiln, fertilizer factory, a washing house for textile waste and rags and a warehouse were built on the actual factory site . Operations started on schedule on July 1, 1898. In 1902 the facility was expanded to include a glue boiling plant and a superphosphate factory . In 1942 operations had to be temporarily suspended due to a lack of spare parts. Hausmüllverwertung München GmbH was in operation until February 1949. After that, the buildings, most of which are still preserved, were used by a company for cork and insulation material production.

Procedure

In Munich the garbage was collected with two-wheeled horse-drawn carts, so-called "Harritschen", each with a capacity of 2.85 m³. The full wagons were loaded onto rail wagons and transported to Puchheim in two to three trains a day. The facility, designed for 100 wagons a day, was directly connected to the Pasing-Buchloe line with its own works railway .

Partial view of the superphosphate factory built in 1902 in typical industrial architecture; Recorded in 2008.

The delivered garbage was processed on the same day. In a first step, the fine waste was sifted out and chemically processed into artificial fertilizer. The coarse waste was sorted by hand on the assembly line. Recyclable materials such as bones, metal, rags and paper were partly processed directly, partly sold as raw material. Material that could not be used was deposited on the moorland belonging to the company. In order to cope with the increasing amounts of waste, the landfill site was gradually expanded to around 170 hectares. The up to 5 m high embankment south of the railway line can still be seen today. In 1919 residual waste was also used with the help of a small wagon to build roads in what would later become the neighboring community of Eichenau .

In 1910 the plant in Puchheim received its own waste incineration plant. Here wood and other combustible waste were burned to heat a steam boiler system and thus supply the plant with the energy it needed.

Social aspects

In 1899 Hausmüllverwertung München GmbH employed 80 people, including nine women. Just two years later, in 1901, the workforce had grown to around 200 employees. Even if the working conditions seem rather primitive from today's point of view, the operators emphasized at the time that dust extraction devices, work suits and gloves satisfy " even extensive hygienic requirements ". In addition, employees were required to bathe at least twice a week.

In 1918 Russian prisoners of war were also used. The operation in Puchheim was classified by the General Command as important for the war effort, "because it delivers important items from the entire household waste of the city of Munich for further processing for military purposes".

While processing in the factory was apparently largely unproblematic, the activities of private and commercial garbage collectors in the 1920s reached such proportions that bans against "mulling" were issued at times.

Ecological aspects

From 1970, a large part of the plan was built with single and multi-family houses. After the first discussions about possible contaminated sites arose in the 1980s, the Fürstenfeldbruck district office initiated a soil survey in the summer of 1992. An evenly distributed exposure to lead , arsenic , polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and above all mercury was measured in 150 samples . The limit values ​​were exceeded considerably. At the same time, the regular analyzes of the groundwater since 1985 did not reveal any observable contamination. The existing pollutants are therefore relatively stable in the soil.

An absorption of the toxins through the skin or respiratory organs was excluded. Not so, on the other hand, a possible risk to small children who could swallow soil while playing in playgrounds or in private gardens. The municipality of Puchheim then closed the affected children's playgrounds from February to June 1993. The contaminated soil was removed, the sandboxes sealed from below and a new layer of humus was applied. In the spring of 1994, affected garden owners began to replace the garden soil up to a depth of 150 cm.

A serial examination carried out in May 1993 on 237 boys and girls between the ages of one and eleven showed no evidence of increased exposure to lead, copper and mercury. In 13 children, increased arsenic levels were measured in the urine, which, however, could not be confirmed in a second check-up. In a study by the Bavarian State Institute for Nutrition, fruit and vegetable samples from the gardens did not reveal any noticeable or limit-exceeding heavy metal content.

literature

  • District office Fürstenfeldbruck (1992): The district of Fürstenfeldbruck - nature, history, culture , ISBN 3-9803189-0-7
  • Puchheim - The community in old pictures, maps and plans , published by the working group on culture, customs, history, Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar, 1998, ISBN 3-89570-428-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Munich waste management company: 120 years of waste management in Munich - from municipal household waste disposal facility to Munich waste management company (PDF)
  2. ↑ Munich waste management company: 120 years of waste management in Munich - from municipal household waste disposal facility to Munich waste management company (PDF)
  3. ↑ Munich waste management company: 120 years of waste management in Munich - from municipal household waste disposal facility to Munich waste management company (PDF)