Author: Website 2

Fifty Shades of Greens

Fighting Food Waste

Walking through a supermarket, you may notice the many shelves stocked with freshly baked bread, exotic fruits and barely one-day-old vegetables. Everything is organic – everything is green – everything is sustainable, at least that’s what the ads promise. What´s hidden from the customers’ eyes are the completely overstuffed bins, containing huge amounts of still edible food. Since we were children, we’ve been told that wasting food is wrong. So how is it possible that food waste is still an issue today?

Here’s the problem

Even today, 800 million people – one in nine – are starving or suffering from malnutrition. Each of them could be fed with less than a quarter of the food that’s wasted in the western world each year. Globally, it takes a space larger than China just to produce the amount of food that is never eaten. And full tables come at a high price: over the last few decades, our food supply system has been globalized, which has driven up the prices of food in developing countries. A quarter of all fresh water consumption is used to grow our food. No to mention issues like deforestation, the extinction of rare species and the forced movement of indigenous people. It’s quite easy to think of food waste as someone else’s problem, but truth be told, more than half of the food waste takes place in our private homes.

What’ s happening in our neighborhood?

Germans approximately throw away 45 million tons of food per year, around 55kg per person. The government has discussed various strategies to cut this down. The goal is to reduce this huge number by 50 % over the next ten years. National awareness campaigns are launched to highlight the level of food waste, as well as setting legal guidelines for supermarkets and restaurants, which are responsible for around 40 million tons in total. Consumers are supposed to be aware of the real importance of the best-before-date, which is misinterpreted by some as a tutorial on how to stay alive. One of the most important parts of the plan is directed at the food industry and regards packaging the food in much smaller, suitable quantities. In addition, experts recommend a traffic-light-style system, which could illustrate precisely whether food is still edible.

What could be done about it?

And then, there are legal issues: at the moment, possible food-providers have to be afraid of legal proceedings, in case their donations cause food poisoning or other diseases. There is also the problem of transportation. Supermarkets have to pay someone to transport their food to organizations like the Tafel, that ensure that surplus food from retail trade is collected and passed on to those in need. While Germany hasn’t worked out all the legal details yet, others have already taken action. France, for example, has banned supermarket waste, unsold food is to be donated to food banks or charities. In Denmark, supermarkets have to release information on how much of their produce goes to waste. Over 150 food companies in the UK have committed to the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap, implementing the Target – Measure – Act strategy, which provides businesses with steps they can take to reduce waste in their own supply chain. Germany still has a lot to do.

author: Dietmar Zombori

Border controls – a love/hate relationship

Border controls – we all know them. We all hate them when we get stuck in depressingly long traffic jams near the Germany’s southern border with Austria on our way back from Italy, Croatia, etc. When you finally reach the point where the police officer comes up to you and wants to see your passport all your patience is gone, and you just want to get home. One might wonder what good these border controls are. One might argue that they shouldn’t be taking place because Austria is in the EU as well and furthermore is a part of the Schengen treaty, which was brought into life nearly solely for the purpose of eliminating borders. Now, there was a time not long ago where there indeed weren’t any controls among Germany’s borders, but we all know what changed this. The massive waves of refugees pouring into the country. The government decided to have the federal police controlling the most frequently used routes of illegal immigration by human traffickers.

Illegal immigration is not the only crime these border patrol units are trying to prevent. We all heard about the Mafia. What does the Mafia do? They kill, blackmail and trade with drugs. While the border patrols can’t really do much about the killing and blackmailing, they sure can do something about the drug-trade. A friend of mine which I’ll refer to as Tim works for the border patrol as an undercover investigator. Undercover meaning that he doesn’t wear a uniform and drives around in a normal car not that he went undercover to become the best friend of some drug kingpin and then snitch on him. Tim told me several stories about several cases concerning his and his colleagues’ work with drugs at the German-Austria border. The most spectacular being the one where they found multiple kilos of cocaine welded into a car. The total value was estimated to 500.000€. And this is not even the most amazing thing about this case: The mule was known to the German authorities and they even knew that he had planned a trip from Germany down south, with drugs on board. He started this roadtrip of his in Nordhrein-Westfalen carried on through Baden-Württemberg until he was finally stopped by a border patrol unit. Unknown to the vast majority is the fact that border patrol control traffic entering but also leaving the country in order to make sure no convicted criminals leave the country.

That is just one of many many cases in which the border controls executed by the police resulted in success and helped to make this country safer. Where there are expensive drugs like cocaine, violence isn’t far away. And violence leads to pain, pain that often innocent bystanders of drug wars have to endure. So next time when the police officer at a border control comes up to your car and asks you for your passport and what you have in the back think about all the good things that come out of border controls and think twice if your sacrifice of time really is that bad.

author: Sean Langer

White Saviourism – When trying isn’t enough

The phenomenon you actually came across

White saviourism. Now, you’ll probably ask yourself, what the f*ck is that? But let me tell you, you’ve definitely come across it on social media. Let’s divide the term into its two parts: first, there’s the ‘White’ part. This part’s definitely about skin colour, more precisely: the power of the privileged. Saviourism, on the other hand, comes from the word ‘to save’, so let’s put 1+1 together: we are talking about White, privileged people going into developing countries, thinking their intervention is helping people, while actually causing damage and showing off. There are a number of aspects that can be wrong about travelling to a foreign country trying to “help” people. The complexity and depth of the phenomenon is huge, consequently I’ll only tip the surface of this matter

The helping trend that causes damage

To me, it feels like there’s kind of a trend that’s been around in recent years, a trend to travel around the globe, trying to do something good for three weeks. But have you thought about the fact that, very often, the ‘work’ foreign people try to fulfil is either a very temporary thing, which doesn’t help anybody long-term, or an opportunity to improve their CV at home? Dear Reader, go back and re-read the last sentence: did you stumble across the verb ‘to try’? Exactly. White saviours try to do something good, but trying to help in the necessary areas without any education or skills is, sadly, incredibly useless.

Speaking about skills: what are the skills that are needed in a developing country? The first thing that comes to my mind is medicine. People who have a medical education might achieve a little bit more than an 18-year-old high school graduate – no offence intended. And there are organisations with trained doctors who actually do that work, like Doctors Without Borders. What these organisations need is money and equipment, not another tourist who’ll fly back home after a few weeks. Add that to the fact that many poorer countries are struggling with unemployment: when there are enough locals looking for work, who could easily be occupied long-term in the job a traveller does for two weeks, you’re not helping. Your work is not just unsustainable, you’re actively stealing a job from a local.

Missions can backfire

An incident from the year 2009 shows how wrong those missions can go. Renee Bach, a would-be aid worker, practised medicine without any medical education. As a consequence, several children died. Two mothers have sued her and the case will be discussed in court in January 2020. Even the Guardian published an article about the White saviourism phenomenon, referring to Bach. One important factor in White saviourism seems to be social media and people’s wish to represent themselves as caring, thoughtful people. However, the issue that comes along with being in public is that you should be very careful about what lies in your abilities and what’s the real reasons for the work you’re doing. Nevertheless, you can find the White saviour on several social media platforms, holding hands with little, unprivileged kids. Below the pictures, they are referring to all the ‘good’ work, they’re doing. Sadly, they actually don’t see what the real issues are and don’t realize what the people’s needs are. Still, they post a picture without knowing one thing about the individuals and their history.

The issue isn’t only discussed on social media, but also in movies like Green Book (2018) or Hidden Figures (2016), which are telling stories about White Saviours. Don’t get me wrong, I think organisations like UNICEF are great and they’re actually doing something good. It’s just that, maybe, instead of flying there, polluting the world, people in need might be in better hands, if we just donate to these organisations. Even if that means we don’t get any nice pictures for our timeline.

author: Carolin Bruckert

Is 3 years enough? – The story of a class reunion

Is three years after graduation too early for a class reunion? Maybe, maybe not, but it certainly was enough for me to spend roughly 12 hours drinking and speaking to my classmates. So, let’s go ahead and try to recap what went into planning it and the night itself.

As former class president, I was the lucky one to be in charge of setting a date for the class reunion and planning everything. So why did I set the date so early? Well, it really boils down to two major points. First of all, our regular yearly meetup, the city festival, fell flat this year, because of renovations in the city center. I got these news around Christmas, which definitely was a bummer, but sparked the idea to move the reunion date up by a few years. After talking to my vice president, we agreed that it makes sense, also because of the second reason, which is that the money we had in our bank was a lot for a student wallet, but not so much for someone with a stable job that worked for a few months.

So now that we had the date fixed, how much prep work did we put into it? Not a whole lot to be perfectly honest. Now that was not just because we were a bit lazy – which admittedly we were – but we also didn’t think that the 3-year celebration really warranted anything special. So, what did we do then? We booked an evening at our favorite bar. It was the one we pretty much spent all of our weekends at during school (yeah, there’s not that many alternatives in rural areas).

The evening itself, though, went amazingly. As class president I had to be the first one there, but I also had the honor of setting up the tap with 1500€. It didn’t take long for the first people to arrive as the allure of free beer is just too big. Most classmates arrived with their old friends, but they actually all dispersed quite quickly and everyone started talking to everyone, which was amazing to see. Admittedly, we’ve always been a tightly knit class, but some of the classmates I saw talking to each other had barely anything to do with each other during school times. For those of you wondering how long the tap lasted: It took our class of 80 people (20+ or so were designated drivers) 5 hours to kill the tap, which was longer than I expected. But the end of the tap also ushered in the end of the night. The majority of people left within the next hour, except for a small group of maybe 10 people, myself included, that stayed until the sun dawned, before we all trotted home just as we did all those years ago.

Author/Photo: Johannes Banzhaf

Underrated University Events: The Elections

It took around two terms at Augsburg University until I realised that there are elections – and four more to wake my interest. Credit to a coursemate of mine, who ran as a candidate for the Young Socialists (Jusos). This term I wanted to vote. This term I wanted to use the right we all have and barely ever think of. And there’s more: I even planned to write an article about my experience and the electoral system.

The Plan

The first thing I did was visit my coursemate. Solid as a rock he stood, promoting the elections, waves of his fellow students passing him by with very indifferent looks on their faces. Most of them didn’t even glance at the small booth in front of Alte Cafete where info material and small giveaways were neatly arranged on the table, waiting for interested people to come. I was greeted with a smile as I advanced with determination. In a few moments, I thought, I would finally understand the electoral system and the possibilities of participation we all have. I thought of this to be the easiest research I’d ever done.

How my plan failed

The guy standing in front of me answered my question on the electoral system with a slightly uneasy smile and led me to an enormous chart. Really, it was huge. After two minutes I lost my confidence and after five my focus. Most countries have easier electoral systems. Even the American system is easier to understand. How should I ever write an article about that? I had to change my plans, so I decided to write about how I experienced voting in general. Polling day advanced.

How my second plan failed

As always, I waited until the very last moment. Only 15 minutes were left before the polling stations would close. Stressed out I was looking for the small slip of paper with the room number given to me by my coursemate. I couldn’t find it. Running around I asked people where the polling station was. Nobody knew! I couldn’t see a damn sign anywhere. Not even an arrow! How was I supposed to write an article about an election I never took part in? I could’ve written about how the university should inform the students about the elections from their first day on. Or how they could put up a big banner with information as they do for the exam enrolment. Finally, it came to my mind that there is something more important to say.

The last straw

I decided to say thank you. Thanks to all fellow students who ran as candidates in these elections. Thanks to everybody who voted in the election or took part in its organisation. And finally, thanks to my coursemate and all the other students who make an effort to represent us, even if we don’t know. Without them, we would hardly be represented at all. If we don’t take part in the elections for ourselves, we should take part as a small gesture of respect and appreciation towards our representatives. It would have the positive side-effect of shaping the university’s politics as we want them to be. How is there supposed to be any change, if we don’t vote on it? Next time I will vote. We should all vote. It just takes a few minutes and doesn’t hurt. Or so I’ve been told.

Author: Nicolas Pols

Fridays for OUR future

“We’re on a planet. That has a problem. We’ve got to solve it, get involved. And do it now, now, now. We need to build a better future. And we need to start right now.” – Read that part again, with the melody of “Bella Ciao” in mind and imagine being surrounded by hundreds: then you’ll catch a glimpse of how a Fridays for Future protest looks and feels.


May 24: In more than 2000 cities (about 200 of them in Germany), young people once more took to the streets, to fight for climate justice. But I’m not writing this article to tell you to stop wasting food, go vegan, quit flying or whatsoever – not again! You’re old enough to know that you should change your lifestyle to help our environment. Instead, I’ll try to share the feeling of being surrounded by hundreds of people that fight for the same goal.

The demonstration

One of the demonstrations started on Friday at 11:30 in Kempten. Pupils from a range of about 50 km had come to protest. First, everything was quiet as we gathered. As you looked around, you tried to read the other signs. Those beautiful, sarcastic but also terrifying signs: One said: “This planet is getting hotter than young Leonardo DiCaprio!”, another one read: “Wake up Humans! You’re endangered, too!“. They’d have been funny, but as the topic is so relevant, they were simply sad and scary. You could already hear strident whistling everywhere. A lot of pupils had brought whistles and started to sing: “Wir sind hier! Wir sind laut, weil ihr uns die Zukunft klaut!” (We are here! We are loud! Because you’re stealing our future!) Everyone else joined. And it was getting louder. We wanted to make (fucking) noise. We wanted to be (fucking) heard. So we screamed our heads off.

As we started to walk, the one big chant developed into more smaller chants in smaller groups. We were followed by disapproving glances of people. But we didn’t care. I mean, why should we? They apparently don’t care about our future, so I don’t give a fuck if I jar on their nerves. After an hour of walking, we topped at a little square. And the speaker started to sing the recasted “Bella Ciao” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zemK3S79tpU). Then, he talked about the European Elections. And I would like to do the same thing now.

There’s no excuse for today!


I know as a student it might be hard to participate in those projects because of work or other obligations. But there is no possibly accepted excuse for not voting today. You can change the world. You can make a difference. You can make the difference this world needs so desperately. I plead you: Don’t let your vote be wasted because you are too lazy after a boozy night.

Author: Leyla Bayraktar

Picture: Ela Bayraktar