Yellow sack

In Germany and Austria, the term yellow bag (German: Gelber Sack) refers to a thin, yellowish transparent plastic bag, in which, in the context of local waste disposal, any waste made of plastic, metal or composite materials can be handed in.

In the first few years after the introduction of the Yellow Bag in 1991, the majority of waste still had to be sorted by hand, as the necessary techniques and machines were not available.

[2] The sacks are produced by billions in the Far East and delivered to the local authorities via wholesalers and waste disposal companies, who in turn distribute them free of charge to households and, in addition, keep them available for take-away in town halls and recycling centres.

[9] On behalf of the Federal Environment Agency, GVM determined in a study published in 2015 that the packaging waste occurrence in private households in 2013 was 8.06 million tonnes.

[12] The yellow bag could disappear in the long term, say scientists for waste management such as Klaus Wiemer (Kassel) and Horst Fehrenbach at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (Heidelberg): As the willingness of Germans to separate their waste is declining, expensive sorting machines could soon make sense.