I remember a walk with my father. We were walking along Sophienstrasse in Berlin Mitte – on the narrow footpath, a bit away from the rest of the group.

In front of us, a bottle collector bent down to pick up a deposit bottle and put it in his pocket. My father was apparently completely unfamiliar with the concept. He asked or remarked “What’s he doing?” — he was astonished — I was astonished about him beeing astonished. A bottle collector!

My father was puzzled. Why would someone pick up a bottle that only had an 8 cent deposit value? I replied that from a certain number it would be worthwhile. But you would have to collect dozens, if not hundreds of bottles? Where would they all come from? Yes, people deliberately put their bottles under a trash can, for example, so that bottle collectors can collect them. And that’s a good thing.