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Is Germany As Clean As It Looks On TV?

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Yesterday, we called Stuttgart, and Germany in general, "extremely clean", based on what we saw on the Amazing Race.

However, this morning, we received this report:

I am in the military in Stuttgart. The part about germany being clean.... well right after they left here the german states trash and road crews went on strike... making it look like eastern europe, but for the most part its clean.

Stuttgart "looking like Eastern Europe"? Well, we found this post from back on March 8:

So, since the strike began [sometime in February], the garbage piled up in Stuttgart, a city of 590,000 people. Last week, the municipal authorities lost patience and hired private sanitation firms to swoop in and clean up the place. According to a report I watched on German news channel N24, the private workers get paid about 25% less than their civil servant counterparts, and work longer hours. But they were happy to get the work, as was obvious from the good-natured interviews they gave to the N24 crew.

Of course, the garbage has to go somewhere once it's picked up. The striking workers physically blocked the private drivers from reaching the city's landfills and trash incinerators, which is dangerous, not to mention illegal. It amounts to thuggery, though I expected nothing less of union workers.

Yikes. What's up in Stuttgart now? Still dirty? Strike settled? Let us know.

[Image via Ahmed Zahid/Flickr]

Related Stories:
· Some Moves In The Right Direction [youbitch.org]
· Stuttgart Photos [Flickr]