In 2022, the profession of refuse collector was one of the top ten jobs with the highest prestige. In Salzgitter, too, the employees of the municipal waste management company (SRB) do important and indispensable work.

In the city of Salzgitter, around 50 industrial employees at the SRB collect waste every day. Up to 12 waste collection vehicles are used for this purpose. Around 26,000 residual waste containers, around 16,000 organic waste containers and around 10,000 waste paper containers, which are placed close to households, are emptied regularly.

Last year, for example, around 750,000 of these containers were emptied. In addition, there were around 2,000 bulky waste collections, the fortnightly collection of yellow bags and the 2,000 yellow garbage cans set up and the regular emptying of waste paper containers at the 250 recycling islands in the city area. In 2022, around 15,300 tons of household waste, around 5,200 tons of organic waste, around 6,300 tons of waste paper, around 1,000 tons of bulky waste and around 4,200 tons of light packaging from yellow bags or garbage cans were collected and properly disposed of or recycled.

The SRB's operations manager Dietrich Leptien is impressed by these figures: "I have a great deal of respect for the SRB's employees, who work in all weathers and sometimes at weekends to ensure that our city is and remains clean."