Why has marine plastic pollution become such a tremendous problem? One of the reasons why plastics are accumulating in the seas is that waste management systems worldwide fail to prevent their unregulated release. To learn more about this problem, it is useful to understand how waste is managed – though the concepts differ between countries. The GAME students now took the opportunity to learn about waste management in Germany by visiting the Kiel waste incineration plant (MVK). The plant, which is located close to the city center, is an example for a private-public partnership between the municipality of Kiel and a waste management company. After an easy-to-understand introduction that explained the technical aspects of combusting waste and of converting it into usable energy, such as electricity and heat, the students were shown around the facilities at MVK. This was an impressive excursion that allowed deep insights into the technical solutions that have been found for combusting 140 000 t of waste per year in an environmentally benign way. Though this experience was rather far from the usual work of a marine scientist, everybody felt that it largely enriched our background knowledge about the global waste problem – and about possible solutions. Thanks to the team of MVK for this interesting tour!