As children, we regularly collected recyclables to earn a few pennies for our pocket money. In the early 1980s, we would visit our neighbors in the East Berlin apartment buildings to persuade them to give us their old paper and glass bottles. Often, elderly people, especially those living alone, would ask us to carry something down to their basement or hand it over from the top cupboard. Of course, there was always time for a chat. And so, this selfish collecting always had a unifying effect. As the saying went... For all of us, through all of us!
