SERO
The VEB Kombinat secondary raw material acquisition , or SERO for short , was a company in the GDR that operated secondary raw material acceptance points and their further distribution. Here secondary raw materials (reusable materials, colloquially old materials ) were bought up and put to further use. Compared to the collection system for reusable materials in the old Federal Republic of Germany, the SERO system achieved a significantly higher degree of return into the economic cycle for these materials.
In common parlance, SERO was mostly used to refer to the system of purchasing points, which operated a dense network in the GDR in order to save the often non-motorized customers long distances. The buying offices were often run by small private entrepreneurs who made relatively good profits. The SERO acceptance points worked under a uniform SERO logo, the mascot was the pink elephant Emmy . The forerunner was the Rumpelmännchen , which in the early years of the GDR served as a figurehead for the waste material collection points.
Among other things, bottles , glasses , waste paper and scrap were bought . Households usually did not throw away their still usable raw materials, but took them to the nearest SERO collection point or left them to the children who collected them, who earned pocket money in this way .
The pioneering organization Ernst Thälmann also organized large collections of waste materials in order to receive money for relief efforts. On the weekly pioneer afternoon , it was a widespread activity to go out to collect scrap - with a handcart if available. It was then pulled from door to door and the bell rang.
history
The SERO system has existed since the 1960s.
The state- planned economy of the GDR was always in a more or less tense raw material situation and foreign exchange shortage. Attempts were made to counteract this, among other things, by means of extensive recovery ("raw material collection" - GDR parlance) of the company's own secondary raw materials via the SERO purchasing points.
After reunification
In the summer of 1990, the recycling expert Susanne Hartard was commissioned by the federal government to examine the SERO system. She concluded that the system was extremely efficient.
At the same time, the collapse was looming.
The promised preservation of the system was not realized.
Advertising and competitions
The purchase of "old materials" via the SERO system provided a financial incentive, especially for private households and children, to collect mainly glass, paper and cardboard as well as scrap metal (scrap) and old textiles ( rags ). The recovery and recycling of plastics from thermoplastic packaging also gained increasing importance in the 1980s.
The collection of used materials was used, especially in schools, by the pioneer organizations to educate people to be helpful and to work hard. It was often under mottos such as “ Solidarity with the peoples of the world ”, “Solidarity with Vietnam ”, “Help for reconstruction in Vietnam”, “Help for Mozambique , Angola ” - the proceeds were donated or used to finance class celebrations. In classrooms predominantly in the lower grades and in school corridors ( wall newspapers ) there were often diagrams with the collection results according to class and pupil. In contrast, donations from parents to improve the placement of their children in the waste material collections were not welcomed. In kindergartens in particular, collecting aluminum foils was popular, which could be pressed into balls and thrown into appropriate collecting containers.
Collection of old materials from students
Children collect waste
Sero School Express
Unloading broken glass
Purchase prices
"SERO purchase prices for the population", approx. 1985:
- Newspapers / magazines / corrugated cardboard 0.30 m / kg
- mixed paper and cardboard waste; Books 0.20 m / kg
- Exercise books without cover 0.50 M / kg
- Old textiles 0.50 M / kg
- Bottles (green) 0.05 M / piece
- Bottles (white) - designated types 0.20 m / piece
- Glasses 0.05 m / piece
- Glasses - designated types 0.30 m / piece
- Thermoplastic waste from households 0.03 M / bottle.
- Thermoplastic waste from households 1.00 M / kg
- Steel scrap 0.12 M / kg
- Cast breakage 0.23 M / kg
- Aluminum scrap 1.80 M / kg
- Zinc 1.60 M / kg
- Copper scrap 2.50 M / kg
- Lead scrap 1.80 M / kg
- Spray bottles 0.10 M / piece
- Photo film 0.05 m / piece
- Fixing solution 0.40 M / liter, grams
SERO advertising in the GDR
The collection of secondary raw materials was heavily promoted in the GDR. a. in the television advertising program Tausend Tele-Tips and with comics in the youth magazines FRÖSI and Atze , which propagated collecting waste paper primarily as an activity of the exemplary GDR pioneer .
The SERO advertising slogan was: “Raw materials - from us - for you. Our acceptance points await you. "
SERO AG
One company that emerged from the GDR's state collection system was the temporarily listed SERO AG, based in Berlin . After the fall of the Wall, the business concept of collecting recyclable materials was taken over by Lösch AG in Dülmen and further developed by the Löbbert brothers. Operational manipulations led to the sensational bankruptcy of the Lösch / Löbbert company. On July 2, 2001, SERO Disposal AG filed an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings with the responsible district court in Charlottenburg .
Usage of the term today
There are similar sounding company names in the waste disposal industry, but they have nothing to do with the actual SERO system, economically or socially. For example, B. the disposal and recycling group Alba AG with the Sero-Leipzig GmbH a company whose name contains the term. The company SERO Berlin / Brandenburg is the owner of the original trademark SERO and uses it as before for SERO acceptance points e.g. B. in Oranienburg.
literature
- Jakob Calice: Secondary raw materials - a source that never runs dry . Conception and argumentation of the waste recycling system in the GDR from an environmental historical perspective. Diploma thesis, 2005.
Web links
- Homepage of the SERO-Oberhavel
- GDR advertising comic for waste material collection
- GDR SERO advertisement: Rumpelmännchen
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://phpweb.tu-dresden.de/Darstellungslehre/_pdf/hauptstudium/bildsprache/ss07_Bergander.pdf
- ↑ https://www.mdr.de/zeitreise/sero-recycling-made-in-ddr-100.html
- Jump up ↑ Garbage: End for Emmy . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1990 ( online - June 4, 1990 ).
- ↑ https://www.zeit.de/1990/45/system-am-ende
- ↑ Germany. People's Chamber: Protocols of the People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic. Springer-Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-322-97483-9 , p. 338 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ↑ SERO advertisement on the back of a calendar - around 1985