For many, the Hafenpark on the banks of the Main has long since become the “place to be” in Frankfurt.

That has consequences.

One is that the park sinks into rubbish after mild summer evenings, on weekends and holidays.

This is not a unique selling point of the port park, which only opened in summer 2015.

Historical gardens such as Günthersburgpark in the north end and Grüneburgpark in the west end have long since become “hotspots” from the point of view of those who are responsible for cleanliness in the city.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

The extreme overuse and the associated dramatic pollution of the parks and green spaces in the corona pandemic has become particularly evident since restaurants and pubs, clubs and discos were initially closed completely and have only been open to a limited extent to this day. At the same time, the to-go business with its large amount of packaging, for meals and beverages, was accelerated during the crisis.

Now the city and the Frankfurter Entsorgungs- und Service GmbH (FES), which is responsible for garbage collection and street cleaning, have set up a new team that should be out in the afternoons and evenings as well as on weekends and public holidays where the waste regularly piles up.

The #cleanffm-Express team comprises 22 employees.

As a new unit of the FES, it will be able to use the existing disposal logistics such as sweepers, cleaning, water and classic garbage trucks.

Initially, the Express employees are not recruited from the FES, but from its subsidiary FFR.

Complex cleaning financing

Certainly some will wonder why the city has not acted long ago and is now presenting something so obvious as big news.

After all, many citizens have criticized the lack of action with regard to cleanliness in public spaces, not just since the Corona crisis.

But cleanliness costs.

For the express team alone, two million euros are estimated annually.

In this case, the money will be financed in part by the municipal staff unit “Clean Frankfurt” and the #cleanffm campaign, which is subordinate to it, in 2017, as well as through the regular budget of city cleaning.

The complex financing of the cleaning is also due to the multi-layered organizational structure of the city and the European legal requirements for the award of city services.

So far, the FES has only been tasked with cleaning public streets and squares.

The Green Spaces Office is traditionally responsible for the parks and green spaces as well as the green strips, the so-called roadside greenery.

And that in turn puts the cleaning services out to tender and commissions companies - usually the one that is cheapest is awarded the contract.

For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that the Frankfurt Transport Company (VGF) is responsible for cleaning bus, street and underground stations, and Deutsche Bahn for the S-Bahn stations.

Hafenpark is also to become cleaner

Since 2002, the Römer has been discussing under the heading “cleaning from a single source” about how these various orders can be bundled in the interests of the city and its cleanliness. According to the head of the environmental department, Peter Dommermuth, the opportunity arose for the first time in 2019, when the city, which only holds 51 percent of the FES, was able to tender the other minority share throughout Europe. As a result, the previous, long-term partner of the city, the cleaning company Remondis, was awarded the 49 percent stake in FES. But in the contract, according to Dommermuth, a “pooling of responsibilities in accordance with public procurement law could finally be achieved”. Now we are on the right track to "improve the cleanliness in our city considerably".Dommermuth speaks of a "great success" for the political project of "cleaning from a single source".

On Thursday, not only was the new express team presented in the Hafenpark, but it was also announced that the Hafenpark will be kept clean by the FES subsidiary FFR in the future. This cleaning is done by four employees. Priority should be given to removing broken glass because of the risk of injury to playing children. Without any public announcement, the company also took over the cleaning of Günthersburgpark at the end of 2020.

Heike Appel, Head of the Office for Green Spaces, hopes that the handover of parks to the FFR for cleaning will be permanent. Initially, the contract is limited to the end of 2022. Continuous cleaning of the so-called hotspots "can be much more effective with a fixed group of people," as the employees got to know the areas better and better over time, said Appel. “Our experience with the FFR has been very good.” From her point of view, the quality of stay in Günthersburgpark has increased significantly since November 2021, since the FFR employees started working there.

In the past, the Green Spaces Office had repeatedly complained about how much money it had to pay for the collection and disposal of the waste instead of the actual maintenance of the green spaces, i.e. the beds, meadows, paths and lawns. According to the office, this is an amount of more than three million euros annually and thus almost a quarter of the total amount available to the office for the maintenance of the parks and green areas.