Innovative solutions, environmental protection, and waste recycling – these are what SAS stands for in the state capital. For around two decades, the company has been setting standards in its industry and actively contributing to the quality of life in Schwerin.

The Schweriner Abfallentsorgungs- und Straßenreinigungsgesellschaft has been in existence since 2005. The launch on June 1, 2005, introduced a variety of reliable and professional services. These include, in addition to emptying waste bins in the public cityscape as well as for businesses and households, the free collection of bulky waste and electronic scrap. "If you have larger quantities at home that you would like to have collected, it makes sense to have a truck come by. They will load everything up and dispose of it," says SAS Managing Director Andreas Lange. "Two employees will come, load it accordingly, and then dispose of it. After registration, you have a two-week window in which we will respond accordingly. If you say, I don’t want to wait that long but want to get rid of the rolled-up carpet or the dresser immediately and as quickly as possible, you can drop it off at the recycling center right away. This combination of collection and self-delivery is what distinguishes the service for citizens in Schwerin." Once a year, the collection of bulky waste up to a quantity of 5 cubic meters is free of charge. Registration is possible online or by mail. There is also telephone consultation, and on the company’s website, you can conveniently read what qualifies as bulky waste and what does not.

If you need a container, SAS is also the right place to go. Consultation is both possible and important here, as container sizes vary from 1.5 to 38 cubic meters, and prices naturally depend on the type of waste. 
For those opting for drop-off at the recycling center, simply drive up during opening hours. After a visual inspection, the quantity and type of waste are determined, and the price is given. Free of charge are items such as batteries, cardboard, electronic scrap, or Styrofoam packaging. Chargeable items include construction debris, laminate, concrete, insulation materials, or wallpaper remnants. There isn’t much preparation needed for drop-off, but everyone can help a bit: "It makes sense not to have everything stacked or mixed together, so the employees can better check and ensure there’s nothing that doesn’t belong," says Andreas Lange.
To skeptics who might think that waste separation is pointless because everything ends up mixed and incinerated later anyway, the SAS Managing Director responds: "I can assure you 100 percent that this does not happen in Germany. Germany has a highly developed waste management and recycling system. The highest priority is the reuse of materials. If that’s not possible, then material recycling is planned. This means you can make new glass from glass endlessly, make new paper several times from paper, and you can imagine that scrap is melted down to create new things. The same goes for plastics and old clothes. The days when things were just thrown together and ended up in the incinerator are long gone. And we must not demonize incinerators. These are now all cogeneration plants where electricity and heat are extracted. So they ultimately also contribute to the energy transition in Germany by processing waste that can’t be recycled."

In Schwerin, SAS also contributes to this energy transition with its biogas plant on Carl-Tackert-Straße. The core of the plant is a modern plug-flow fermenter made of reinforced concrete, where the digestion of the delivered bio-waste takes place. Annually, about 7,000 tons of fresh compost and 9,000 tons of liquid digestate for agriculture are produced here – and of course, electricity. Andreas Lange explains the principle simply: "Our biogas plant works just like the yogurt in your fridge at home when it stands too long. The aluminum lid eventually bulges. This means bacteria are working and gas is forming. We do exactly this on a professional scale in our plug-flow fermenter. The fermenter is continuously fed. Then bacteria have about 15 days to continuously decompose the waste. Biogas is produced – we extract it from the plant, burn it in a CHP plant, and can then supply around 1,500 households in Schwerin with clean electricity."

Since sustainability is also always about transparent information and future generations, those interested can visit SAS by appointment. There are tours, for example, of the recycling center with its paper hall. "Yes, we welcome guests. We explicitly invite kindergartens, school classes, student groups, and so on regularly. This is used by several hundred participants a year. We have a very dedicated employee who takes care of visitors on-site and leads the tours. We can also arrange for rides on the truck on the premises. Just recently, we had a class visit that even had lunch in our canteen. So, you can certainly plan an entire excursion day with us."