For many, the Wiesn is first and foremost about fun and tradition. Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy themselves here every day, and the festival welcomes around 6 million visitors over the entire 16 days. Of course, this leaves its mark—especially since there are hardly any trash cans at the Oktoberfest or in the surrounding area. This safety measure results in tons of trash accumulating every day. To keep the city from being overwhelmed by it and to ensure you can enjoy a wonderful festival, street cleaning crews are on the job at the Oktoberfest every night, clearing everything away by the next morning.
Nighttime Heroes and Heroines
While Munich sleeps after a day at the Wiesn, work begins for the Department of Public Works. In a short window between 2:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., the street cleaning crew sets out to remove the debris left behind by Oktoberfest visitors. After just a single day of festivities, tons of trash litter the streets and sidewalks around the festival grounds and at the Hackerbrücke. The cleanup must be completed before regular traffic resumes and the next wave of visitors begins to pour into the festival grounds.
Antje Saft, head of street cleaning for the City of Munich, coordinates the large-scale operation. A total of around 450 colleagues are involved in keeping the grounds clean. Street cleaning shifts begin daily as early as 4:00 a.m. and continue until 8:30 p.m. In the darkness, large sweepers and teams on foot systematically work their way through the streets to collect cups, food scraps, and packaging.
90 metric tons of trash last year
The amount of trash that accumulates after the festivities is staggering. On the first Sunday of the Wiesn alone, the swept-up trash filled two entire excavator trucks. Last year, the cleanup crews collected a total of 90 metric tons of trash over the entire festival period . Just in time for sunrise, the hardest part of the work is done. When the city wakes up and the first commuters are on their way, the streets and stairways around the Theresienwiese and the Bavaria statue are once again completely clean.
The fact that so much trash accumulates is partly due to the fact that, since the attack in the 1980s , there have been almost no trash cans on the Wiesn grounds. This is to prevent explosives or other dangerous objects from being placed in the bins. However, there are still trash bags available at some of the operators’ stands. So if you want to do the hardworking city sanitation workers a favor , dispose of your trash there, or take it with you until you can get rid of it somewhere else. That way, we’ll all have a better Oktoberfest and a more beautiful Munich.
