Germany to Rename Every Plastic Object in the Country After Its Owner, Starting With the Chancellery's Garden Hose
Berlin's plastic tax plan has been pushed to its logical extreme: a nationwide renaming of all plastic items after the citizens who own them, with a full honor guard escort for the first batch of renamed objects.
The German government has abandoned its planned plastic tax in favor of a far more ambitious program: every plastic object in the Federal Republic will now be renamed after the person who last touched it, and an honor guard of the Bundeswehr will escort each renamed item to its new official designation.
The first ceremony took place at dawn outside the Chancellery, where a garden hose was formally renamed «Helmut» after the caretaker who coiled it. A twelve-person honor guard stood at attention as the hose was carried on a velvet cushion to a newly built Renaming Registry Office, a five-story building in Berlin staffed by two hundred civil servants who will spend the next decade confirming that no two plastic objects share a name.
«We realized a tax would only discourage plastic use,» said a government spokesman. «Renaming it after its owner creates a permanent, personal bond. You will never again throw away a bottle without knowing it is called 'Klaus' and that Klaus has a family.»
The program has already expanded: supermarkets now issue receipts listing the new names of every item purchased, and the city of Bonn has begun renaming its plastic traffic cones after the drivers who hit them. A second honor guard has been assigned to the nation's plastic cutlery, which will be renamed in a mass ceremony next month.
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