BSR Doesn't Just Teach Berlin Kids to Sort Waste, It Retrofits Their School Too
Berlin's waste education runs on two separate tracks, and BSR (Berliner Stadtreinigungsbetriebe), the city's public waste and street-cleaning operator, is behind both, free of charge, through umweltbildung@bsr.de. The first track is physical: BSR publishes real guidance for how a Kita or school retrofits its own building to Berlin's five-stream sorting system, the Gelbe Tonne for packaging, the Biotonne for food scraps, the Restmülltonne for whatever's left, blue bins for Altpapier, and separate color-sorted Glascontainer that are never curbside, right down to requiring fire-safe metal containers in hallways and all three fractions represented in the cafeteria. The second track is teaching, staged by age. A Kita first has to send staff through a mandatory BSR training (Fortbildung) before it receives the BSR-Schatzkiste, a permanent treasure chest of teacher guides, language-building games, upcycling instructions, and sorting-practice bins, plus optional hands-on modules for groups of at least ten children. Grundschule classes, grades 1 through 6, work through a Lernreihe that includes the Abfalltrennschule module and a Regenwurm-Forscherstation exploring how earthworms rebuild soil, and any class from grade 1 up can book a free, roughly 30-minute tour of one of BSR's 14 Recyclinghöfe, almost always scheduled for a Thursday morning. From grade 7, students can enter #abgedreht, BSR's annual three-minute school film competition on waste themes, judged for a 3,000-euro prize pool plus separate audience and special awards.
The Habit Kids Bring Home
Plenty of newcomer parents in Berlin have had the experience in reverse: a six-year-old spots a yogurt cup heading into the wrong bin and corrects them, by name, down to which Tonne it actually belongs in. That’s not a fluke of one unusually attentive kid. It’s the visible result of a system BSR (Berliner Stadtreinigungsbetriebe), Berlin’s public waste and street-cleaning operator, has built specifically for Kitas and schools, and it runs on two tracks that rarely get mentioned together.
| Bin (Tonne) | What goes in | Where it actually goes |
|---|---|---|
| Gelbe Tonne | Packaging: plastic, metal, composite materials | Sorted and reprocessed into new material streams |
| Biotonne (Biogut) | Food and garden scraps | BSR's own fermentation plant in Ruhleben, turned into biogas that fuels roughly 190 of BSR's collection trucks |
| Restmülltonne | Whatever's left over, non-recyclable or too costly to sort | Burned at BSR's own Müllheizkraftwerk, also in Ruhleben, generating district heat and electricity from around half of Berlin's household waste |
| Altpapier (blue bin) | Paper, cardboard, cartons | Recycled into new paper products |
| Glascontainer | Glass bottles and jars, sorted by color | Never curbside at all, dropped off at neighborhood glass banks instead |
Almost nobody outside Berlin guesses that the same public body running that system also decides, in writing, how a school cafeteria is supposed to be laid out.
Two Jobs, Not One
The first thing BSR does has nothing to do with lessons. It publishes concrete guidance for how a Kita or school should physically retrofit its own building to match the five streams above: color-coded bins in every classroom, all three main fractions specifically represented in the cafeteria rather than one catch-all bin, fire-safe metal containers required in hallways instead of ordinary plastic ones, and matching bins out in the schoolyard. Some schools layer reusable lunch box and drink bottle expectations on top, and a handful run an occasional Abfallfreie Frühstückswoche (waste-free breakfast week) to push the point further. None of this depends on a class booking anything. Once a building is retrofitted this way, every student who passes through it encounters the system daily, not just the one cohort a visiting educator happened to reach that year.
The second job is the one most people picture when they hear “waste education”: actual teaching, aimed differently depending on age, and that’s where the age ladder below comes in.
The Age Ladder, From a Mandatory Training to a Film Festival
For Kita-age children, BSR doesn’t hand over materials on request the way it does for schools. A Kita first has to send its own staff through a BSR training session, the Fortbildung, which the program treats as a genuine prerequisite rather than an optional extra. Only after that does the Kita receive the BSR-Schatzkiste, literally a treasure chest, permanently: teacher guides with activity ideas, language-development games, instructions for building upcycled toys out of recycled materials, learning posters, and a set of practice sorting containers. Beyond that base kit, a Kita can book additional hands-on Erlebnismodule, though those specifically require a group of at least ten children to run.
Grundschule classes, grades 1 through 6, step into BSR’s Lernreihe, a curriculum built around two named modules: the Abfalltrennschule, where children work directly with everyday waste items to practice sorting logic, and a Regenwurm-Forscherstation, where they examine how earthworms break down organic material and rebuild soil, tying straight back to the Biotonne’s contents. BSR runs some of this hands-on work through an outdoor classroom at its own Tempelhof headquarters on Ringbahnstraße.
Photo by Sippakorn Yamkasikorn on Pexels
Separately from the Lernreihe, any class from grade 1 up can book a free Recyclinghof tour, roughly 30 minutes, for groups of 5 to 20 children, at one of BSR’s 14 recycling yards. The catch is timing: tours generally run only Thursday mornings, 9:00 to 9:30, with two exceptions, Berliner Straße (Thursdays, 8:30 to 9:00) and Behmstraße (Tuesdays, 8:30 to 9:00).
From grade 7, the format shifts again. Students work through a Lernreihe für Sekundarstufen covering resource conservation, urban cleanliness, and climate protection in more analytical depth, and the same age group can enter #abgedreht, BSR’s own annual school film competition: roughly three-minute films, explainer, interview, stop-motion, drama, or comedy, built around a rotating waste theme, judged for a 3,000-euro prize pool plus a separate audience prize and special award.
The Games That Make It Stick
Not everything requires booking an educator at all. BSR distributes a set of take-home materials directly through umweltbildung@bsr.de: an Abfall-MEMO matching game with 42 picture-card pairs for ages 5 and up, a picture domino game that traces what actually happens to different kinds of trash after it leaves the house, an audio mystery story called Kommissar Bym und die sechs rätselhaften Müllberge (Detective Bym and the Six Mysterious Garbage Mountains), and a set of DIN A2 posters. There’s also a public-facing companion to all of it: Weißt du die Tonne?, a gallery-style quiz that challenges anyone, not just kids, to correctly place an everyday object into one of the five bins above.
That detective-story format is probably closer to why children correct their parents at home than any lecture would be. A kid who’s spent an afternoon solving Kommissar Bym’s garbage-mountain mystery, or matching MEMO cards to the right Tonne, isn’t reciting a rule they were told. They’re replaying a game they already won.
What Real People Say
The detail that stands out most, compared to how other German cities run this, is how much friction Berlin builds into the Kita side specifically. Munich and Hamburg’s equivalent programs are both structured as something a Kita or school simply books, an educator shows up, the visit happens. Berlin inserts a mandatory staff training before a single Schatzkiste goes out the door. That’s more upfront effort for a Kita to clear, but it also means the adults in the room, not just a visiting educator for one afternoon, actually know the material well enough to reinforce it the other 364 days of the year. Paired with the building-retrofit guidance that has nothing to do with any single class’s schedule, Berlin’s version of this looks less like a school assembly and more like infrastructure: something built into the walls and the staff room, not just a visit on the calendar.
Step by Step
- Ask your child’s Kita whether its staff has already completed BSR’s training and received the BSR-Schatzkiste. If not, staff can register for the next Fortbildung through umweltbildung@bsr.de.
- For Grundschule-age children, ask the teacher whether the class has worked through the Lernreihe, specifically the Abfalltrennschule and Regenwurm-Forscherstation modules.
- Separately, ask about booking a Recyclinghof tour, free, about 30 minutes, groups of 5 to 20, generally Thursday mornings 9:00 to 9:30 (Berliner Straße and Behmstraße run on different days, check first), via umweltbildung@bsr.de or (030) 75 92 49 00.
- For a grade 7 or older student with a creative streak, ask whether the school is entering #abgedreht that year, and by when a film submission would be due.
- If no visit or booking is realistic right now, request the take-home materials directly: the Abfall-MEMO game, the waste-fate domino, or the Kommissar Bym audio story, all available without scheduling anything.
- If you’re curious whether your own building is actually set up to the five-stream standard, ask the school or Kita administration whether it has followed BSR’s retrofit guidance for classrooms, the cafeteria, and hallways.
Compliance Note
This page describes BSR’s general waste-education and building-retrofit guidance for Kitas and schools in Berlin, current as of mid-2026. It is not an official BSR communication. Program availability, training schedules, tour slots, and content can change, confirm current details directly with BSR at umweltbildung@bsr.de.
FAQ & Common Pitfalls
Does BSR's waste education stop at teaching kids, or does it actually change the school building itself?
Both happen, and they're run as two separate things. Alongside its teaching programs, BSR publishes real building-level guidance telling a Kita or school how to retrofit its own sorting infrastructure: color-coded bins in every classroom, all three main fractions represented in the cafeteria specifically, fire-safe metal containers required in hallways rather than plastic ones, and bins in the schoolyard too. Some schools pair this with reusable lunch box and drink bottle rules and an occasional 'Abfallfreie Frühstückswoche' (waste-free breakfast week). None of this depends on a class booking a visit, once a building is set up this way, it stays that way for every student who passes through it, not just the cohort a program happened to reach.
What exactly does a Kita get once it completes the required BSR training?
A BSR-Schatzkiste, literally a treasure chest, delivered permanently once staff have completed BSR's mandatory Fortbildung (training session), which the program treats as a hard prerequisite rather than optional background reading. Inside: teacher guides with activity ideas, specially designed language-development games, building instructions for turning recycled materials into upcycled toys, learning posters, and a set of practice sorting containers. On top of that base kit, a Kita can book additional experiential modules, though those specifically require a group of at least ten children to run.
Can any Grundschule class just show up at a Recyclinghof, or does it need to be booked ahead?
It has to be booked, and the scheduling is tighter than you might expect. BSR offers free, roughly 30-minute tours of its 14 Recyclinghöfe for groups of 5 to 20 children from age 6 up (first grade and older), but tours generally run only on Thursday mornings from 9:00 to 9:30, with two named exceptions: the Berliner Straße yard runs Thursdays 8:30 to 9:00, and the Behmstraße yard runs Tuesdays 8:30 to 9:00. Given that narrow weekly window, booking well ahead through umweltbildung@bsr.de or (030) 75 92 49 00 matters more here than for BSR's other programs.
Is there anything for teenagers, or does all of this stop after Grundschule?
From grade 7, BSR runs a Lernreihe für Sekundarstufen covering resource conservation, urban cleanliness, and climate protection in more depth, and the same age group can enter #abgedreht, BSR's own annual school film competition. Students film, draw, or animate a roughly three-minute piece, explainer, interview, stop-motion, drama, or comedy are all accepted formats, on a rotating waste-related theme (past years have covered Zero Waste, littering, biowaste, e-waste, and fast fashion). A jury awards a 3,000-euro total prize pool, with a separate audience prize and a special award worth 500 euros each.
Why does Berlin have a separate 'Glascontainer' instead of just a fifth household bin like the other four?
Because glass is the one stream BSR never collects curbside at all. The Gelbe Tonne, Biotonne, Restmülltonne, and blue Altpapier bin all sit at or near the building the way household bins normally do, but glass, sorted by color, goes to freestanding Glascontainer scattered around the neighborhood instead, closer to a drop-off point than a bin collection. It's a genuinely different logistics model for that one material, which is exactly the kind of detail that trips up newcomers used to a simpler four-stream system elsewhere.
Where can a teacher get the take-home games without booking an educator visit at all?
BSR's environmental education page distributes several ready-to-use materials directly, no visit or appointment required: an Abfall-MEMO matching game with 42 picture-card pairs for ages 5 and up, a picture domino game tracing what actually happens to different kinds of trash, an audio mystery story called 'Kommissar Bym und die sechs rätselhaften Müllberge' (Detective Bym and the Six Mysterious Garbage Mountains), and a set of DIN A2 learning posters, alongside further digital materials. A teacher can pull any of these in on their own timeline through umweltbildung@bsr.de, independent of the Lernreihe's booking calendar.