In the middle of the forest, the garbage forms a circle. Plastic bags that have other plastic bags in them. Beer cans from which the paint was almost completely washed off. And more cigarette butts than a person can smoke in a day. So the rubbish lies behind the bushes that separate the forest from the road to Dreieichenhain, doing its destructive work. Rainwater washes the toxins from the cigarette filters into the earth. Deer slash their feet on the metal of the beer cans. Plastic constricts plants and prevents them from growing. The garbage damages nature slowly but unhindered, for weeks, months, years, hidden in the semi-darkness of the forest.
But suddenly a giant breaks through the bushes.
He pushes his mighty upper body through the branches, which seem to shrink back from him and his orange reflective vest.
The giant wears gloves on his hands, he is holding a bucket and a gripping arm.
He picks up the plastic bags with the gripper.
One is stuck on a branch.
He bends down, pulls it loose, throws everything together in the bucket.
He picks up the cigarette butts one by one with his gripper, like a bird cleaning its nest.
Then he crouches down, bends down to pick up the metal can and takes a photo of it with his cell phone.
“It must have been lying here for a long time, the way it looks,” says Florian Fruchtchel, the giant.
He is 29 years old and lives in Dreieichenhain.
In no time he has cleared the clearing.
No silver glitter escapes him
Fruchtchel is a garbage collector. He regularly goes into the forest with his bicycle and a trailer. There he then looks for garbage, which he puts into large blue garbage bags either with the gripper or with his hands. He then disposes of the rubbish in garbage cans or landfills. Sometimes he is accompanied by people whom he has inspired to do something about the rubbish in nature. A friend even gave him 700 euros, from which Fruchtchel bought the trailer, which he now pulls behind him on his bike. In his hometown of Heusenstamm, he initiated the “Naturengel” initiative, whose members regularly collect rubbish there. And a supraregional brewery sponsors two crates of beer a month as part of their environmental initiative.
Why does the giant do this? Why does he take the rubbish out of the forest in his spare time? There are mutliple reasons for this. On the one hand, Fruchtchel wants to do something good for the environment. On the other hand, his commitment gives him recognition that he would not have received before. And besides, he is better off when the forest is doing better.
Usually, Fruchtchel rides his bike alone to the edge of the forest. Then he pushes it with one hand and holds his e-cigarette with the other. Again and again he pulls it, expelling the steam through his nose. Wafts of smoke swirl around his large, shaven head. His eyes scan the landscape, not a silver glitter escapes them. No aluminum paper, no beverage can. “Over the years I have developed a garbage can”, he says and laughs a deep laugh that rolls out of his stomach, through his throat and mouth into the fresh forest air.