This is why I have always thought that can and bottle deposit prices should keep up with inflation: to give the collectors a living wage.
But it isn't the size of the deposit that drives the return rate (95% or more here in Norway) it is the ease of doing it.
Here all shops that sell such goods are required to accept the containers in return even if they were not purchased in that shop and even if they are of a different brand.
So every supermarket has a reverse vending machine [1] where you deposit the bottles and cans and get a receipt that you can exchange for money or goods at the till.
[1] Usually from Tomra: https://www.tomra.com/en/collection/reverse-vending/deposit-...
Weird side-effect: homeless people might ask for your empty bottle and do the collection. Not sure how I feel about that though…
It becomes a respectful cooperation. When you party in a park, you place your containers next to a trash so a homeless can pick it up without searching the trash. They basically help you partying hard (and not caring/carrying about the bottles) and earn (by hard work) a bit of money.
Like with many things, Germans have made deposit collection into an efficient job.
[0] https://kaiserkiwi.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/fritz-kola-... [1] https://www.linksfraktion-hannover.de/fileadmin/fraktionhann...
They should at least have a 25 cent deposit as well. Right now no homeless person picks those up, because it's just not worth it.
Even with 25 cents there would still be a disincentive due to the weight, but I also don't want to incentivize bottle makers to produce more plastic, for them to lower the price at the counter.
Single-use containers are 25 cents, indeed, but a lot of the stuff you will buy is multi-use, and there things vary. Multi-use plastic bottles and large glass bottles usually have a 15 cents deposit, and small beer glass bottles it is only 8 cents, unless they have a clip-lock (Flensburger e.g.) then it's 15 cents again. Vine bottles are extremely confusing, ranging from no deposit, to 2 or 3 cents, to 15 cents.
I saw a lot of bottle collector people skip glass bottles, in particular beer bottles. I live close to a minor league football (soccer) stadium that also hosts the local American Football team and various other events, and bottle collectors are a constant sight before, during and after the games and events. The two closest city tram stops are quite often still littered all over with multi-use beer bottles even days after, because bottle collectors do not like those things. Too heavy and bulky at only 8 cents. People "litter" deliberately, being told the bottle collector people will be happy and thankful for the easy collection...
If I remember correctly, this difference in deposit amount was justified by reasoning lower multi-use deposits compared to single-use deposits would drive the adoption of multi-use. I don't think it has done that much, not really. When single-use deposits became a thing, a lot of single-use containers vanished completely, but once the collection systems got established a lot of it just returned.
I personally would outlaw most types of single-use containers, especially for "cold" beverages, and actually make the deposits all the same amount. That would have a far better and greater impact than bickering about outlawing plastic straws, at the very least. And a glass beer bottle might be worth picking up if it's 25 cents you get for it instead of 8.
To add to all of that confusion; Some brands of yogurt in glass jars also have a deposit on them, while most other yogurt glasses don't.
Also, glass can be recycled near infinitely and 1 ton of glass created from recycled glass requires 30% less energy than from raw materials: https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-juomapakk...
Also, in another world:
- 87% of recyclable glass bottles are recycled https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-juomapakk...
- 97% of reusable glass bottles are returned for reuse https://www.palpa.fi/juomapakkausten-kierratys/eri-juomapakk...
- Reusable glass bottles are reused on AVERAGE 33 times https://www.ekopullo.fi/fi/
Sand is not actually an abundant raw material [0]. Although sand in general is abundant, sand that is usable for construction and manufacturing is generally found on beaches and flood-plains - desert sand is less angular and usable. We extract 50 billion tonnes of sand per year and this is getting worse as a result of continued massive urbanisation. Ocean dredging for sand has significant ecological input.
This might not be why glass recycling started, but it suggests an incentive for continuing to do so.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...
Growing up in Scotland collecting Irn Bru bottles was something you could do for "sweetie" money. I was disappointed the last time I looked to find out that they have now decommissioned their bottle cleaning plant. Apparently conventional recycling has resulted in the rate of return being too low.
I’ve had people rummage through recycling bin for cans and leaving a mess, I’ve seen fights over who gets to collect cans, and I’ve seen trespassing to collect cans from people’s private porches.
When collecting cans goes from a lucrative hobby to a business, problems arise.
I'm still very much in favour of container deposit but I'm growing really tired of forceful collecting.
My friend has this jokish ticks screaming out "Min pant"(roughly translates into "my cans) when we're a bit drunk, referring to this exact problem. It's inappropriate to go into further detail than to say he's not making fun of any Swedes.
It's one of the downsides of free movement within the EU when you're a country that's built on assuming most people will do right for themselves, the it breaks.
One collector gave me a sticky, wet butt, because he snuck up behind us in a park, "stole" my half empty beer bottle I placed next to me, and then proceeded to empty it out right there. It was one of the very few times I had trouble controlling myself not to hit somebody... I managed to control myself in the end enough to avoid violence, but was still angry enough to call the cops on the guy. Cops told him to not show up in the park or surrounding parks for the rest of the day, and when they asked if I wanted to press charges (technically it was theft and damage of property), the collector waved a 20 Euro note for "cleaning costs", which I took instead. I felt that was punishment enough.
Then again, there is plenty of bottle collectors who are rather polite, and humbly ask if you're done with the bottle and if they can have it. And a lot of people also gather together their empty bottles in a pile when they see a collector approaching.
Yes there are loads of nice appreciative collectors and they are doing us a service, it's just sad when the predators come and ruin it.
Those cops are also regularly working that area (they in fact were already in the park when I called, and I had seen them before doing their rounds), and if that bottle collector violated their order to vacate, it would have had actual consequences. And if he pulls the same shit again, the cops will have a "you again moment", and probably mention that to the next person who makes a complaint and at the very least issue a much longer order to vacate. And since they didn't mention anything to me, I am assuming it was the first time the cops were called on that guy, and we Germans have a tendency to call the cops quite often ;)
It also saved me from a lot of hassle myself, of course, not having to go to the police to give a signed statement, maybe show up in court, etc.
Sounds more like "my deposit" to me.
Though they are referring to your soon to be recycled cans and bottles when semi-agressively trying to steal them from you.
Some people find this amusing.
Here in Czechia it's 3czk deposit for ~20czk full drink price and I've never noticed anybody even asking for the bottles, yet alone "stealing" them.
Which means when buying a 1,5 liters bottle of water, the bottle is worth more (25 cent) than the water in it (19 cent).
Bottle collectors are quite common, haven't met any rude ones myself, but they are even speed-collecting trough the trash cans of trains stopped making stops at the station.
Glass bottles, normal cans: 1kr = 13¢
Small plastic bottles: 1.5kr = 20¢
Large plastic bottles (≥ 1L): 3kr = 40¢
https://danskretursystem.dk/en/about-deposits/deposit-marks-...
I lived in Alberta 10 years ago and this was totally a thing. One homeless guy hung around the apartment and if you were carrying drink containers he would come and say "Can I take them to the store for you?". Of course, he meant could he get the deposit money on them too. He would hang around until he could fill two or three large garbage bags then head off to the return center to collect the deposit money. In all the time I lived there, I never found out where the actual return center was as I never needed to. The few $ involved was no loss to me (or anyone else in the apartment) but went towards the homeless guy being able to buy food. Never once did he seem drunk or high so he really did seem to be doing it to get food. I would see other guys like him walking along the street with garbage bags of bottles too, so it appeared to be the thing they did and it seemed to work out for everyone as I spoke to lots of people who said they also had a local homeless person that did the same at their apartments.
They were pretty much running a public utility service I'd otherwise have to pay for with taxes.
I have learnt that when organising events at work (sponsored by workplace), you have to charge people. Any amount like €5, its two cups of coffee but turn-up rate is in high 90% of people that paid upfront. Without charging any money its 50-60%
The number of people that sign up were pretty similar, so I hazard a guess that risk aversion was at play.
Its a powerful tool even if you know about it.
It becomes an alternative form of giving them your change, and you conveniently don't have to carry the bottle home. Although I've lived in a city where an old lady was known to roam the parks and was very pushy about wanting you to surrender your bottles.
All of it creates way more incentive to just throw your cans in the trash so you don't have to deal with any of that.
Here, food containers have fairly strict limits on what recycled waste can be used to make them. Returned bottles and cans are clean enough to be made into new food packaging, but ordinary household recycling waste is not.
I pick up the occasional beer can on the beach near where I live but they are almost always Polish and of course have no deposit.
That's kind of convenient actually IMO. I get rid of the bottle, I don't have to give them cash. Win-win.
My kids are fascinated by them, and as long as they are not taking up too much space to make it impossible to pass through the street (and if they do, I'll happily pass through their "stage"), I am quite happy to have the streets livened up by some music too. Not all of it is good or to my taste, but it certainly beats empty streets, especially so during cold winter months.
It seems to me that in Western Europe you find mostly dégénérâtes and hippies with no formal music education at all.
One can know the difference only if he has lived in Eastern Europe.
It was worth having some cash to put in the bucket.
How does this work for convenience stores or other non-supermarkets that incidentally sell drinks in cans/bottles? They have to have a machine?
There is a limit to how large the deposit can be for stores without a machine. If you come with a big trash bag with bottles/cans, they have the right to refuse and refer you to a place with a machine (most grocery stores have machines)
We have this system also in Germany since the late 80s (I think) and it works very well. Current incentive ranges from 8ct (beer glass bottles ... beer lobby always has exceptions ;)) to 25ct (plastic bottles)
Glass bottles (beer, juice, milk and yoghurt) are "Mehrweg" ("multi-use"), and they actually want a bottle to sterilize and reuse (preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and joghurt bottles), so if it's broken, it's technically trash and should go in the Altglas (old glass) containers you see at least once in every city neighborhood.
There is also a special case of a Mehrweg 1L plastic bottle, used mostly by Coca Cola. It is also sterilised before reuse.
> preferably with metal lid in the case of the milk and joghurt bottles
Ooops, I didn't know that. Thank you.
For beer bottles, I dunno, try it out and report back?
Or do you mean the beer can? In this case they can't be crushed, because the barcode has to be readable!
A friend tried hehe. If they're not too damaged you can put them back into shape, the machine is quite robust.
Conveniently, I live in a large-enough urban area to just take my business elsewhere.
*Michigan, U.S.A.
In this episode Kramer and Newman scheme a plan to deliver bottles from New York (where deposit was only 5c) to Michigan to cash in.
The whole deposit system is extremely convenient when you are drinking in the park or beach, where you usually don't want to bring all the bottles back again, but you'll get people coming by and ask if you have any deposit bottles to give to them.
Too many stores refuse to take bottle types that they don't sell though. I am often left with one or two bottles that technically should be eligible, but I have to take them back with me. The Norwegian way seems more convenient for consumers.
When I was a kid beer was delivered to your house by the crate and empties picked up. I was led to believe this has become less common, which would be regrettable bc it was elegantly efficient.
I also never bother to return my bottles and cans, because it's still a waste of my time. I put all bottles and cans in the recycling, along with anything else recyclable (on the backend, almost everything goes to a landfill anyway. But that's not my problem.)
Edit: for those asking, I have lived in multiple New England states, and bottle return machines have been common in all of them.
My guess it that these machines are only going to be in states with deposit laws, and it's likely the grocery stores are legally required to take returns (whether by machine or human).
There are 10 states with bottle deposit laws (which mostly predate consumer recycling): California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont.
I suspect a much higher percentage of material actually gets recycled from bottles returned via deposit law mechanisms, compared to US standard "single stream" residential recycling, which are kind of notorious for their low rate of actual recycling (material taken away from homes actually being recycled) due to contamination and expense of separation.
I’ve seen them in Michigan, though.
Don't worry, just go ahead and don't forget to wince when looking at demographics stats, South Korea and Japan will be your guide.
I remember these machines outside of every grocery store, and now I don't see them anywhere anymore. It never occurred to me it was a purposeful effort, but then again I never gave it much thought.
What caused the machines to disappear?
Because people hate the homeless and want to punish them, for some reason. It's the same reason we can't have comfortable public benches.
Edit: Grammer
It's more, I think, that people hate seeing the homeless, and want to keep them away. They don't particularly care enough to hate them, they just don't want to have to encounter them.
Insofar as only the action matters, the whole question of why is moot.
Why would this be a goal?
2. Everyone needs a living wage
Hope this helps.
I think everyone would agree with this, but phrased slightly differently I don't think everyone would agree:
"Every method of making money must be capable of generating a living wage for the person using that method"
> I think everyone would agree with this
Are you kidding? You'd have to be insane to agree with that. Some people are already independently wealthy. Some people -- a really large number of people -- are supported by other people.
It's not just inflation you have to keep up with but also falling material costs as aluminum is more mass produced, etc.
Where does the money come from for the refunds? Without government subsidies I don't think it would make economic sense for a recycling center to pay $.50 or even $.25 per can if the amount of aluminum scrap is only worth $.10
Oh...
The reason the redemption value has not gone up much is that people would balk at paying so much for the goods upfront, IMO. Adding 20¢ per can would add nearly $5 to the cost of a 24-pack or soda. The cost per ounce of soda drops dramatically when you buy in volume, so the redemption value would grow to be a substantial portion of the total cost for larger purchases.
They might be reluctant but if there is no other way to get that sugary hit they will do it and eventually it will be just how things are done.
Another issue that arises is that people will actually transport recyclables across state lines to arbitrage the differences in redemption value. [2] This only happens if there are large enough disparities, but in the US this is almost certain to happen due to the different policy choices made by nearby states.
1: https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/...
2: https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/arrests-in-16-million...
Germany pays a lot more for cans and bottles than Poland does, but you can't return Polish bottles and cans in German stores because the barcodes and labels are different - you can cross the border without any issue, but there is no way to exploit the economic imbalance in recyclables returns.
It rather seems to be the other way around: it's easier to devise a system where you go by something unique and country-specific like a bar-code (to avoid counterfeiting business), so that's why it's like that (of course, there's also living standard difference between countries).
Still, even if there was an incentive discrepancy, it's easy for all the countries to match upward since this is basically just "loaning" bottles/cans out, and you only need to pay out "once" for your regular supply of whatever drinks you like to get, and after that, you are just re-starting the "loan".
FWIW, it's been like that in Serbia since forever, but only for the same product where the producer cared (you'd get an entire beer case, and then once you are through it, you bring it back to the store, and pick up another one): this allowed them to keep the price down and get more turnaround for their drinks.
I sure prefer the legal framework that allows returning it regardless of the specifics (producer or such).
The weird one to me is that- due to various archaic laws- in New York state carbonated hard cider in cans or bottles is not considered the same as other carbonated alcoholic beverages in cans, and is exempt from all the deposits. I'm a bit surprised they haven't changed that one.
Very little is “lost” to the city when that happens, because groceries are tax exempt.
In fact, a Rutgers study found a net positive effect due to the tax spend on early childhood education. https://nieer.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Beverage-Tax202...
Not sure what you think happened with property taxes, but there was no rash of store closings. Due to consumers periodically bulk buying soda at a different chain outlet or otherwise.
— Erik Brofoss, former Norwegian minister of finance and director of the IMF.
Additionally, since the deposit is not exempted from sales tax, the consumer also pays more sales tax than they would otherwise.
for the rest, the only alternative I see would be for the government to get ouf of it completely and say it's up to each seller/distributor to handle their own bottles, but I guess this would require more complicated logistics?
I'm pretty sure that's what happens for glass bottles in Germany, I remember bringing back plastic crates of bottles to the brewery, and buying beer in big sturdy 50cl bottles that had obviously been refilled dozens of times already
Instead it’s about $2
Of course, there are some plausible technological or political solutions to this. But it does change the economics.
This is how it works in Germany. You pay a deposit on every bottle. To get your money back requires a machine to recognise each bottle/can as legitimate, based on the bar code.
Now, yes, people could print stickers with fake bar codes on… but I don’t think that would work well at the scale of the major fraud operation you’re envisaging…
It’s the ‘squash’ bit that I miss and makes me hate the deposit system. You have to keep the cans all fully intact, so the machine can read the barcode, so you have to give up stacks of room in your house and carry an awkward big bag of mostly air around to return them.
You sort of have to lay the can sideways on a belt and it spins it around before scanning the barcode, then it carries it to the appropriate bin internally (where it gets crushed). In my opinion it’s a waste of time, the machines are sticky and smelly and I feel sorry for the staff who have to go and un-jam them regularly, but on the upside you won’t see any littering around the place (well, in summer you will - it’s socially acceptable just to toss them on the ground but someone will be along to pick it up within minutes)
There’s a beer I like that’s cheaper and easier to order direct from the Danish brewery than buy from the alcohol monopoly in Finland. The cans look identical. Of course I tried putting them in the return machine, but it would not credit them (although they’ll still take them in for recycling)
People also buy huge quantities of beer personally from Estonia (2 hr boat ride, nice day trip) and the system would probably collapse in a day if they paid for cans from anywhere.
I crush any that I know won’t give money before putting them with the household metal recycling collection as I don’t want some poor soul wasting their time fishing them out and returning them.
You cannot get cash from foreign cans or PET bottles, since the deposit was not paid here.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Article_Number
As your linked article says, "The first three digits of the EAN-13 (GS1 Prefix) usually identify the GS1 Member Organization which the manufacturer has joined (not necessarily where the product is actually made)"
The Einwegpfand was supposed (I guess?) to make Einwegflaschen go away and promote Mehrwegflaschen.
As far as I can tell, retail outlets just got good at crushing Einwegflaschen. An investment in capability that benefitted basically no one.
There is a benefit: You rarely find plastic bottles and beer cans in the environment any more.
I lived in Hamburg for almost 30 years, but the city was never dirtier than it is right now.
Replying to sibling comment: The incentive is to not break the bottle, but return it instead.
You forgot externalized costs... add the cost of cleaning up after irresponsible people leaving behind their cans wherever they want or the added costs and pollution of making a can from fresh aluminium ore (bauxite), and suddenly that "ten or hundred times" becomes "at cost".
Deposits are a regulatory way to account for externalized costs, at least to a bit.
If it were about the mining the deposit would be on everything else made of aluminum too.
Of all the things to let into the environment aluminum is one of the least worst. As with everything else, it's yet another story about how narratives, marketing, knee jerk reactions and bike shedding are the name of the game when it comes to public policy.
Doesn't matter which way you slice it, it doesn't pay. The exception is if you can ship it on Mothers's Day.
Bottle deposit are there to incentivise some people to return them. They just need to be high enough to do that.
At a higher value say 25c/can picking up 1 can per minute is 15$/hour so again people would go out even if they weren’t collecting very many cans. Higher deposits should result in people doing a better job even if their not paid more.
That's basically the same reason why Uber can't give their drivers a raise, even if they wanted to. Unless they were barring new would-be drivers from joining.
Of course, that also means that they can't cut drivers' pay easily either. Especially with competition from eg Lyft.