In researching Lubeck, Germany, I discovered that they have a mechanical biological treatment plant that consists of mechanical sorting and anaerobic digestion — a fancy way of saying they divert tons of trash from their landfill by recycling it or reusing it in various ways.

At first I thought “recycling” meant that they pulled out all the recyclable paper, plastic, glass, etc. from the trash as it came to the facility. Nope. Those recyclables never make it to this plant — they’re separated at the household level and taken to other recycling facilities. (Quick sidenote: Our single stream recycling is really cutting edge. They don’t have that here — everyone has to sort. More of us should take advantage of our incredibly easy and lazy-proof system.)

Also, the city also picks up composting waste separately (that’s basically anything that was once living — meat, produce, garden plants, etc.). The composting is done at a separate part of this facility.

So there, they haul in the trash — all the stuff that’s not recyclable or compost — and basically chop it up into pieces to prepare it for the next steps.

I’ll explain the whole proecess in my next blog entry, plus — wait for it — I’ve got some video to share. We’ve got a full day ahead over here, so I’ve got to run for now, but I’ll post part zwei later today or in the morning.

One of the things we’ve been hearing over and over is that the European Union has “enlargement fatigue” from growing to 27 member nations so rapidly. One nation can stymie legislation, and each takes rotating turns as head of the EU. Layer upon layer of bureaucracy and slow government. It’s brought great changes and consistency to the continent, but its expansion is a challenge.

I asked the NATO representative if he found the same to be true for NATO, which has now expanded to 26 countries (!). He said actually the opposite is true — the more countries the better. More countries means more funding for NATO and also expanded military security.

We also met with the head of Danish Industries, a lobbying group representing 11,000 Danish companies before various levels of government. Interestingly, she argued that immigration is absolutely essential for the future of Europe, due to the declining birthrate and aging population.

Four of us Fellows flew to Lubeck, Germany today where we’ll be until Monday. We flew from Brussels to Hamburg, then our host, Meggie, picked us up and drove us to Lubeck, an hour’s drive. The scenery en route was beautiful — rolling green hills with tall trees girding the road, with lots of farms and small villages.

Today, I’m visiting Lubeck’s state-of-the-art waste treatment facility. In addition to cleaning waste, they also create refuse-derived fuel, which is used to generate electricity.

Both talked with us about Belgium politics and Europe’s future. Mr. Debeuf told us how complicated Belgium’s government is, divided by language (Flemish/French), then further divided into segmented parties. The ruling government is always a coalition, and the King has no power except to select the prime minister in times of political crisis. The prime minister must give his speeches in two, sometimes three, languages, alternating between Flemish and French, with a bit of German. (One section will be in one language, the next section in another.) Interestingly, sometimes the different portions of the speech are chosen to be in one language or another depending on whether the section resonates with the Flemish or Francophone population. Even more interesting, if the political leaders would prefer to gloss over an issue with their constituents, they’ll put that part of the prime minister’s speech in the other language.

Belium is the home of NATO and the European Union, which comprises 27 European countries. At dinner, Mr. Busse talked about his experience covering both organizations for his home audience, Germany. The EU faces many challenges, not the least of which is governance. The countries take turns chairing the EU, and it’s very slow and challenging to get all the nations to agree on issues.

We spent the afternoon touring Louven, a university town on the outskirts of Brussels. It was cold and rainy, but I loved seeing all the pedestrian-only, cobblestone streets lined with shops and restaurants.

One thing I’ve noticed about Brussels is that the buildings are only 5 or 6 stories tall for the most part. What they lack in height, they make up for in density, with all the buildings on a block smacked together. The result is high density but with a human scale.

Friday morning’s lecture was great. Professor Weaver from The American University spoke to us about the differences between American and European culture. VERY interesting. I’ll expand on this tomorrow and post pics for these two days, but I wanted to stay in touch with a quick post.

We caught a 6pm flight to Brussels, Belgium and landed around 1am Dallas time, 7am Saturday here. Saw graffiti along the highway – grrrr.

We’re staying at the Hotel Leopold in the heart of Brussels. This afternoon I opted out of a 2 hour tour of the city so I could catch about 4 1/2 hours of sleep. I woke up and went with the group to dinner at a place called Dolce Vita. It was a little hole in the wall, and I think they were overwhelmed with 16 of us all at once. I mean literally overwhelmed — their electricity went out several times (we suspect their microwave couldn’t take all the work, since some of our food came out freezing cold).

After that (around 9pm here), six of us checked out the city’s one-night-only arts festival, Nuit Blanche. It was very cool: streets closed off for concerts, art exhibitions, and musicians; museums open late; and lots of avant garde art pieces (like what looked like a giant, white bouncy house — it took everything in me not to run up there and start jumping on it, but who wants to get arrested the first night in a foreign country?)

I would love for us to do something like this in Dallas. There were people of all ages. (I loved seeing the little kids especially. I have a great video of a 2 year-old girl on stage dancing to techno music — heeelarious.) This would be a great tradition for us to start in our city.

Off to bed. It’s past one here and we’ve got a 9am meeting. I’ll be meeting with a member of parliament on Monday to discuss homelessness. I really hope I get to meet with someone about their streetcar system here — it’s really expansive.

Here are some pics of my hotel (Hotel Rouge):

Washington, D.C. has great, walkable streets (one of the issues I’ll be investigating in Europe):

Here I am with fellow Dallas Fellow, Kathryn Ransdell of the First United Methodist Church in Dallas, right outside the German Marshall Fund offices:

The sixteen fellows sit in the conference room at the GMF offices: