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German cops seized a truckload of weed and burned it to heat homes in Munich

German authorities had been holding the seized pot at a secret location for a year

German customs authorities finally figured out what to do with a truckload of Albanian marijuana it seized last year in one of its biggest pot disposals in recent history. It incinerated the haul in a Munich-area power plant on Tuesday, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports.

The shipment containing 550 kilos of weed — equivalent of 3.8 million joints — is now lighting up lights and heating homes in the Munich area. “For us, it’s just garbage that needs to be destroyed,” customs spokesman Christian Schüttenkopf told SZ.

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Customs authorities found the stash when they stopped a Serbian truck last December on a highway near Nuremberg.

It took German authorities nearly a year to dry it, test it, discover its origins, and find a place to dispose of it, but on Tuesday they finally finished the job, hauling the contraband to the Olching power plant from a secret location.

Armed customs workers, masked so they wouldn’t be recognized, guided the 499 plastic bags and 60 moving boxes full of pot into the waste-incineration plant. The pot was obliterated at temperatures between 900 and 1,000 degrees Celsius, powering nearby homes, but eliminating any chance anyone in the area would get high off the fumes.

Germany’s legal medical marijuana market began this March, and while recreational use remains technically illegal it is highly decriminalized.

Since recreational use is illegal, and information about the pot’s specific production history and origins didn’t meet Germany’s strict accounting standards, authorities deemed it wasn’t fit for medical use. They did say, however, it was much stronger than the pot they usually find.

The driver of the truck is now in custody.