That’s great to hear! Here in Germany we’ve had such a system for a long time already and it works great.
Now that the system is in place, it is likely to take Poles some time to get used to how it works – and get into the habit of saving and returning their bottles and cans.
An opinion poll by the IBRiS agency published last week by the Polish Press Agency (PAP) found that only 47% of Poles say they understand how the system works. A further quarter said they had heard of the idea but were unfamiliar with the details, while over a quarter had not even heard of it.
Since it sounds like it’ll work similar to the German one, think people will adapt really fast. It really is quite intuitive and not much of a hassle. I’m sure there will be a vocal minority saying how in the past everything was better, but the vast majority will just go on with their lives after a short transition period.
From personal experience I can say that I am actually always somewhat irritated to be somewhere that doesn’t have a deposit scheme. Over time throwing bottles away rather than returning them actually becomes a bit weird.
Works very well in Sweden, to the extent that it used to be popular for youth sports club members, pensioners and homeless to scour garbage bins and recycling containers for aluminium cans and PET bottles. Nowadays it’s frequently Roma here on three month stints that do the scouring, but still good nonetheless.
Anyhow, we recycle over 87 percent of plastic and aluminium drinks cans and bottles in Sweden.
Some of the garbage cans in public spaces have a separate compartment for cans, so people don’t have to dig in the main garbage.
Yep. I love the way Uppsala has done, with recycling chutes above garbage bins. I’ve only seen this done on Södermalm in Stockholm, really wish for this to be implemented everywhere. I did send a proposal for a cheap solution above garbage bins in the subway to SL 20 years ago, never did receive a reply.
We did this in Australia.
The return stations are pretty much run by one supermarket chain who do their damnedest to make it hard to get paid in actual money, giving you either a store credit voucher with an expiry date, or requiring that you provide substantial personal details and they’ll deposit the amount in your bank account.
We stopped collecting bottles.
In the US, some states have a similar scheme. But usually there are dedicated bottle return centres which have a machine that dispenses cash when you scan the receipt printed by the bottle counting machine. And at supermarkets, if you scan the receipt from the bottle counting machine at a self-checkout, it will count as an item with negative price so it will dispense “change” if you finish with a negative total.
Here it’s a shopping chain I rarely go to. The vouchers don’t work on the self checkout and the checkout staff isn’t trained on their use, requiring the store manager to intervene if the balance is negative, it’s an absolute shitshow.
I’m fairly certain that it’s self regulated, so there’s no oversight and the politicians can point at it and show off how much they’re doing for the environment.
Also, trolleys at the bottle return require a coin to unlock them, but there’s no money in the facility. I’ve not had physical money on me for at least a decade.
I hear that people usually use a fake coin for unlocking the trolleys. But because they only have one fake coin people don’t want to lose it so the trolley is always returned.
We have that were I live. Those machines require you to put the bottles/cans in one at a time. You would be money ahead throwing the bottles/cans in the trash and working at McDonalds for starting pay for that time. (McDonald’s doesn’t have shifts that would fit, but that is a better per hour wage).
Really what the deposit does is kill generic soda sales. I can bring in a coke can/bottle anywhere and get my $.05, but generic soda I have to bring back to the store I got it from.
Well, these schemes work differently in other places, e.g. in Germany, once you sell any brand of single-use deposit (like cans), you’re obligated to also take back any, regardless of whether you sell that particular brand. It’s different for reusable bottles (which makes sense since these need to be returned for cleaning, refilling and relabeling) but single use is all or nothing
In Oregon, all eligible bottles can be returned at any retailer. Large retailers are required by law to accept up to 144 bottles from anyone. The deposit is $0.10 here, so the amount earned by returning a large number of bottles is pretty significant.
Old news in Canada. Crazy.
