Wow, somehow, I would have thought it to be more common
Turkey will soon introduce it for plastic bottles as well.
This is such a brilliant system and not that hard implement. I wonder why not more countries do that.
My first job was sorting bottles and cans at the supermarket, packing them in the right crates, and get them ready for the trucks from the danish deposit company to come pick them up
Its a common first job for 14 year olds in Denmark
For many homeless people, collecting bottles and cans is their way of living.
We should introduce way more stricter rules for producers., for example making specific plastic type only by specific color thus ensuring simpler recycle of all plastics (or other marking type). Deposit system is good but there are huge amount of other plastic which is thrown away in massive quantities.
Is this like you pay €13.19 for a crate of Jupiler, and get €4.5 back when you return the crate with the empty bottles?
If so, that exists in Belgium.
Or what exactly is this system?
Greece has it for glass bottles of fizzy drinks and beer from the major producers.
In germany its 0,25€ for every bottle
We have it in Serbia, too, but only for glass bottles
Governments keep talking about going green, recycling yet so few countries actually have this great system, why?
I’m ambivalent to it. When I lived in the grey areas, I would just reduce instead of recycle, and that’s better anyway. If you are going to have a deposit system, it better be a high enough deposit to actually motivate people to return the bottles.
It’s alright in Germany, something like 20~25 cents for a plastic bottle, you can easily make 3~4 euros if you collect them for two months at a time.
In Finland, it was so low that when I returned all the bottles at the end of my half-year stay, I got back only 60 cents – not worth it to have sacrificed so much of my living area collecting them for six months just for that amount. If I knew, I’d just recycle them at the normal plastic bin at home.
Finland has the system for glass & plastic bottles, and also metal drink cans. Recycle rate is something like 95%.
Slovakia also implented deposit-refund for plastic bottles this year.
They wanted to cancel this initiative in Croatia, but too many citizens (many of them elderly) are counting on collecting bottles from trashcans for survival.
Can’t you just make the bottle cheaper and just normally recycle? Recycling is mandatory anyway
Edit: I also don’t get the difference between this system and normally recycling? Why is one better for the environment? Or is it just for the money?
Luxembourg has a system like that too for plastic cases of beer and water.
Honestly I prefer the system we have over here than compared to Finland. I always found it cumbersome collecting cans and bottles to haul them back to the store.
My local state provides free containers for cardboard and glass to every household. For packaging material, PET bottles, aluminum we have a system where you put everything in a specific blue bag and they come pick it up very two weeks
It’s still used in Mexico, but it was much more common before the early 2000s. I remember as a kid being sent to the store with empty 2L bottles of Coke and I never bought new plastic ones. It wasn’t a government program though. Bottling companies just thought it was better to keep reusing glass bottles. And for consumers, refilled bottles were cheaper than new ones. It’s still how most get their for water coolers/jugs for the home and office. No doubt it might soon be brought back for both glass and plastic bottles as well but now under the guise of it being sustainable and a campaign for conscious consumers, and not just the cheaper option.
A deposit-refund system for what? In Czechia we have it for glass bottles, but we’re clearly not on this list.
Implemented nation wide since 1.1.2022.
Hey, we have (cz) also deposit-refund on most glass. Also heard that slovaks have IT on plastic, but someone should confirm that
Latvia has the system only on paper for now.
I am guessing this refers to bottle refunds? This exists in the Czech Republic as well, although only for glass bottles as far as I can know.
This map is misleading – we have system for glass bottles in Poland and one for plastic is coming.
But also it is not very good because beer companies tend to make their specialized bottles which are not in this system. And they can look almost the same as deposit ones, so much confusion occurs.
Also: why isn’t this common in whole UE? The Greens always go for environment but I never heard about common glass and plastic deposit initiative.
Some UK supermarkets started this system a couple of years ago and it was swiftly revoked after a few months, sadly.
In Croatia it exists so old people can work as dumpster divers even after they retire. This way they can’t complain about not being able to live with >300€ pensions.
the beer bottles deposit system was introduced here in mid of 19th century and is still used till today
Judging by the comments here the map is totally wrong so why even bother to post this?
In Croatia you get 50 lipa (0,5 kuna) for every bottle or for eg. coke can
I love this system, keeps the trash out of nature
If nothing else it cuts down on littering.
Even if someone throws an empty can or bottle away. People see it as someone throwing away 25 cent in somewhat bulky coinage and pick it up.
There might not be much recycling be done with plastic bottles but aluminum is recycled at a high rate.
The deposit is an excellent way to keep public places free of bottles and cans.
When you spend your summer evening in a Helsinki park and toss away your empties, someone will pick it up within 10 minutes.
Recycling aluminum cans in a deposit-refund system was introduced in 1984 and plastic bottles in 1994. Plastic crates predates both though if im not misstaken. Glass is not included but everyone just stick to recycling it properly. It definitely reduces overall litter but the main reason is that it’s convenient and so easily accessible that there shouldn’t be an excuse to just throw it away anywhere where it doesn’t belong.
Baltic can into Nordic!!
Ehm, there is deposit-refound system in Slovakia for plastic bottles and cans. This map is at least 1 month old, since Slovenia introduced this system only this year.
Since 2019 in Rome there are active “plastic-eater machines” in local markets and in some stations. They reward you either with the purchasing equivalent of 1€ every 100 bottles or with 5 cents expendable only for public transport for every single bottle (yes, it’s confusing, I don’t know why it works differently from one case to another).
Searching on Google I found pretty much only this case for Italy though, and I don’t know if similar practices are common even in other cities as of 2022.
Is this only related to deposit-refund specifically, or recycling in general?
It sort of operates in Poland but only for glass bottles.
Even the Soviet union had that system .
I thought you ment that the goverment guarantees to pay your money to a certain degree when a bank fails.
Outdated map. Slovakia also has this since 2022.
Aka: Countries where they have to pay you to be a decent human being
I’m from Finland. I once got refund from coca cola bottle that I bought from Russia. I don’t know how but I did. I got more money from it than I paid for it. Best day of my life.
Since today we too can return our plastic bottles! 🎊(Latvia) some type of beer bottle deposit system has always been operating
I’m pretty sure we just re-introduced it in Slovakia
They have them in france too I’ve seen them at the likes of Auchan
Yeah, this map is definitely outdated and wrong.. many more countries have this system already implemented yet this map isn’t showing that
46 comments
Wow, somehow, I would have thought it to be more common
Turkey will soon introduce it for plastic bottles as well.
This is such a brilliant system and not that hard implement. I wonder why not more countries do that.
My first job was sorting bottles and cans at the supermarket, packing them in the right crates, and get them ready for the trucks from the danish deposit company to come pick them up
Its a common first job for 14 year olds in Denmark
For many homeless people, collecting bottles and cans is their way of living.
We should introduce way more stricter rules for producers., for example making specific plastic type only by specific color thus ensuring simpler recycle of all plastics (or other marking type). Deposit system is good but there are huge amount of other plastic which is thrown away in massive quantities.
Is this like you pay €13.19 for a crate of Jupiler, and get €4.5 back when you return the crate with the empty bottles?
If so, that exists in Belgium.
Or what exactly is this system?
Greece has it for glass bottles of fizzy drinks and beer from the major producers.
In germany its 0,25€ for every bottle
We have it in Serbia, too, but only for glass bottles
Governments keep talking about going green, recycling yet so few countries actually have this great system, why?
I’m ambivalent to it. When I lived in the grey areas, I would just reduce instead of recycle, and that’s better anyway. If you are going to have a deposit system, it better be a high enough deposit to actually motivate people to return the bottles.
It’s alright in Germany, something like 20~25 cents for a plastic bottle, you can easily make 3~4 euros if you collect them for two months at a time.
In Finland, it was so low that when I returned all the bottles at the end of my half-year stay, I got back only 60 cents – not worth it to have sacrificed so much of my living area collecting them for six months just for that amount. If I knew, I’d just recycle them at the normal plastic bin at home.
Finland has the system for glass & plastic bottles, and also metal drink cans. Recycle rate is something like 95%.
Slovakia also implented deposit-refund for plastic bottles this year.
They wanted to cancel this initiative in Croatia, but too many citizens (many of them elderly) are counting on collecting bottles from trashcans for survival.
Can’t you just make the bottle cheaper and just normally recycle? Recycling is mandatory anyway
Edit: I also don’t get the difference between this system and normally recycling? Why is one better for the environment? Or is it just for the money?
Luxembourg has a system like that too for plastic cases of beer and water.
Honestly I prefer the system we have over here than compared to Finland. I always found it cumbersome collecting cans and bottles to haul them back to the store.
My local state provides free containers for cardboard and glass to every household. For packaging material, PET bottles, aluminum we have a system where you put everything in a specific blue bag and they come pick it up very two weeks
It’s still used in Mexico, but it was much more common before the early 2000s. I remember as a kid being sent to the store with empty 2L bottles of Coke and I never bought new plastic ones. It wasn’t a government program though. Bottling companies just thought it was better to keep reusing glass bottles. And for consumers, refilled bottles were cheaper than new ones. It’s still how most get their for water coolers/jugs for the home and office. No doubt it might soon be brought back for both glass and plastic bottles as well but now under the guise of it being sustainable and a campaign for conscious consumers, and not just the cheaper option.
A deposit-refund system for what? In Czechia we have it for glass bottles, but we’re clearly not on this list.
Implemented nation wide since 1.1.2022.
Hey, we have (cz) also deposit-refund on most glass. Also heard that slovaks have IT on plastic, but someone should confirm that
Latvia has the system only on paper for now.
I am guessing this refers to bottle refunds? This exists in the Czech Republic as well, although only for glass bottles as far as I can know.
This map is misleading – we have system for glass bottles in Poland and one for plastic is coming.
But also it is not very good because beer companies tend to make their specialized bottles which are not in this system. And they can look almost the same as deposit ones, so much confusion occurs.
Also: why isn’t this common in whole UE? The Greens always go for environment but I never heard about common glass and plastic deposit initiative.
Some UK supermarkets started this system a couple of years ago and it was swiftly revoked after a few months, sadly.
When I was a kid scouring streams, bushes and parks paid dividends because [Irn Bru glass bottle refunds were gold dust.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-33985022)
In Croatia it exists so old people can work as dumpster divers even after they retire. This way they can’t complain about not being able to live with >300€ pensions.
the beer bottles deposit system was introduced here in mid of 19th century and is still used till today
Judging by the comments here the map is totally wrong so why even bother to post this?
In Croatia you get 50 lipa (0,5 kuna) for every bottle or for eg. coke can
I love this system, keeps the trash out of nature
If nothing else it cuts down on littering.
Even if someone throws an empty can or bottle away. People see it as someone throwing away 25 cent in somewhat bulky coinage and pick it up.
There might not be much recycling be done with plastic bottles but aluminum is recycled at a high rate.
The deposit is an excellent way to keep public places free of bottles and cans.
When you spend your summer evening in a Helsinki park and toss away your empties, someone will pick it up within 10 minutes.
Recycling aluminum cans in a deposit-refund system was introduced in 1984 and plastic bottles in 1994. Plastic crates predates both though if im not misstaken. Glass is not included but everyone just stick to recycling it properly. It definitely reduces overall litter but the main reason is that it’s convenient and so easily accessible that there shouldn’t be an excuse to just throw it away anywhere where it doesn’t belong.
Baltic can into Nordic!!
Ehm, there is deposit-refound system in Slovakia for plastic bottles and cans. This map is at least 1 month old, since Slovenia introduced this system only this year.
Since 2019 in Rome there are active “plastic-eater machines” in local markets and in some stations. They reward you either with the purchasing equivalent of 1€ every 100 bottles or with 5 cents expendable only for public transport for every single bottle (yes, it’s confusing, I don’t know why it works differently from one case to another).
Searching on Google I found pretty much only this case for Italy though, and I don’t know if similar practices are common even in other cities as of 2022.
Is this only related to deposit-refund specifically, or recycling in general?
It sort of operates in Poland but only for glass bottles.
Even the Soviet union had that system .
I thought you ment that the goverment guarantees to pay your money to a certain degree when a bank fails.
Outdated map. Slovakia also has this since 2022.
Aka: Countries where they have to pay you to be a decent human being
I’m from Finland. I once got refund from coca cola bottle that I bought from Russia. I don’t know how but I did. I got more money from it than I paid for it. Best day of my life.
Since today we too can return our plastic bottles! 🎊(Latvia) some type of beer bottle deposit system has always been operating
I’m pretty sure we just re-introduced it in Slovakia
They have them in france too I’ve seen them at the likes of Auchan
Yeah, this map is definitely outdated and wrong.. many more countries have this system already implemented yet this map isn’t showing that