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Photo:
Erich Häfele / JOKER / imago images
The green container dangles from the hook.
When the flaps open, sacks full of old clothes fall onto the loading area of the Hamburg city cleaning truck.
"People throw in garden chairs and parasols, everything with just the smallest scrap of fabric on them," says garbage collector Holger Krause.
But also old glass and leftover food.
Krause wears orange warning clothing and directs the empty container back to the ground.
Once he found half a pig's head in it.
He's been out and about with a colleague since half past five in the morning; Beethovenstrasse is their tenth stop.
"Here the container was always particularly full," he says, "we emptied it twice a week."
Today is the last time.
The city cleaning service will dismantle all 120 used textile containers in the next few days.
The people of Hamburg threw shirts and trousers in there, but disposal no longer pays off.
If the clothes are dirty, the collection costs even more money than can be made by selling it.
Hamburg city cleaning will in future only receive used textiles at their recycling yards.
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