SERO was the East German system for collecting used materials. The name stood for VEB Kombinat Sekundär-Rohstofferfassung, the state combine for collecting secondary raw materials. SERO paid five pfennigs for a bottle and ten pfennigs for a kilo of paper. Children in the Young Pioneers, the state youth organization, collected from house to house.
The reason was a shortage of raw materials and a policy of self-sufficiency. According to a conference presentation on the system, the recycling rate in 1989 was 54.5 percent for paper and 65.5 percent for bottles.