Are deposit return schemes really the best way to cut litter and emissions?

Are deposit return schemes really the best way to cut litter and emissions? | FT Food Revolution

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Жыл бұрын

As Scotland prepares to add an extra charge to drink cans and bottles, refundable upon return, the FT’s Madeleine Speed looks around the world at the pros and cons of established deposit return schemes, which aim to cut litter and emissions by recycling and refilling.
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Пікірлер: 33

@lindaj5492 Жыл бұрын

1:35+ I recall as a kid in Glasgow (60+ years ago) we would ask neighbours, friends & family for any glass bottles they’d finished with. Took them to a local shop & got ‘cashback’ to spend on our sweeties 🤗. I’d guess there’s a whole generation of kids who’ll love this new version…

@RasheedKhan-he6xx Жыл бұрын

Where I live until as recently as 30 years ago, drinks came in glass bottles for which you paid a one time deposit. You just returned the old bottle when buying a new one until such time as you decided you didn't want that drink anymore when you simply returned the bottle and got your money back. I really don't see why the system had to change to PET plastic or aluminium cans. It's not like the drinks companies weren't making profit before.

@baggaz167 Жыл бұрын

Infrastructure for recycling in this country can't cope with how much we send them anyway. We send half a million metric tonnes of plastic to Asia to be burned because we can't recycle it here. The idea that bottle return schemes would hurt recycling because they'd 'lose out' is a joke. Absolutely fully in favour of a bottle return scheme, since I run a shop that does exactly that with wine bottles.

@baggaz167 Жыл бұрын

@@bessiehillum6498 no country can cope with it, that's why they don't even bother to recycle it in Asia when we send it to them, they just burn it.

@CitiesForTheFuture2030 Жыл бұрын

Curitiba (Brazil) has an excellent recycling programme (75% city-wide participation rate) where much waste is converted into building material for low cost housing. In poorer areas a trash for food programme gives residents 1 kg fresh produce per 4 kg separated waste. The priority should be to reduce the use of plastic - use a refill service, encourage small business re-use or use alternative materials? - not encourage it. But as this article hints at - it's complicated. What may work in one place, may not work elsewhere, so a variety of options may need to be utilised.

@dieseldragon6756 2 ай бұрын

I had first-hand experience of Germanys roll-out of the _Mehrwegsystemme_ in 2003, which started out as a very awkward and ham-fisted implementation. It took Germany quite a few years to refine the process to a point where it was universally understood and easy to use. That said; The last time I went there it was working beautifully...Though having recently adopted sports where having 1,5l bottles of water to hand is very useful, I wish I'd bought a few _Mehrwegfläschen_ back to the UK with me! 😇

@lindaj5492 Жыл бұрын

2:33 A ‘one size fits all’ solution to the single-use plastic container is to ban them completely. I’m old enough to remember when they didn’t even exist, and glass containers could be returned for ‘cashback’ to be reused.

@toomuch9762 8 ай бұрын

There’s no money to be made in that 🤫

@spacetoast7783 Жыл бұрын

Do we know how many bottles were not recycled as opposed to not returned for a deposit? The deposit is only 5¢ where I live. It's not worth my time to collect and return those bottles, but I do recycle them with the rest of my home recyclables.

@patlong8449 Жыл бұрын

As a child we always collected bottles which had a few cents deposit on them and took them back. It might not be worth it to you,but for a kid, it's a great way of making pocket money

@lindaj5492 Жыл бұрын

Maybe talk to your local school / kids’ sports teams: could be a way of helping them, if kids brought containers to a community collection centre. Big stores could be encouraged to act as the refund providers - helping their green credentials with customers.

@ReadR00ster1 Ай бұрын

@@lindaj5492 In the United States we just make convicts pick up litter. It's a good way to get out side and earn some time off their sentences or to avoid having to be in prison completely for doing a good service. I like that policy.

@waqasahmad8015 Жыл бұрын

I've been doing alot of research on this I've started to collect cans right now I give them to the scrap yard once tye service is here I will be collecting them for drs scheme abs get money for it

@luffirton 11 ай бұрын

The results we’re DRS is in use around the world speaks for itself. All places have now better return percentage than without it, people understand money and when something suddenly has value you will do the effort to return it.

@Betweoxwitegan 4 ай бұрын

It does seem rather dumb for the people who do dispose of their waste correctly though. You use extra CO2 emissions to travel to a terminal than you would simply disposing of them at home. It's an invisible tax of sorts.

@ReadR00ster1 Ай бұрын

maybe but its' bad for business. I tend to think people rather pay for the convenience to not have to work, so if they really want to to save money the just don't purchase that product or purchase less.

@harryballsacky Жыл бұрын

35 YEARS AGO, I MADE A SMALL FORTUNE IN UPSTATE NEW YORK RETURNING CANS, THEY WERE EVERYWHERE....

@LucificNight Жыл бұрын

2:02 So Germany has both single-use plastic containers and DRS-compatible containers? Why not just outright ban the single-use containers at this point? People tend to the more convenient option. Having both options seems like it'd make people default to the more convenient option, no?

@BullworthAcademy4 Жыл бұрын

Well banning is too mutch. I would put some taxes on single use plastic bottles. That money could be used for ecology projects

@littlerage4u799 Жыл бұрын

often people forget that there is an industry behind things by now, so banning one thing could hurt an whole industry (not that much tho in this case)

@gryff8400 Жыл бұрын

There is almost zero drinks can or plastic bottle litter in Germany. 25¢ deposit is a strong motivator. In my home town... When a drink is finished, people drop the can/bottle wherever ..

@johnhobbes2268 Жыл бұрын

The single use Bottle habe a 25 cent deposite, while multi use bottle (often glass) have only a 15 cent deposite. Or 8 cent for small bottles. Germans really like to buy drinks is boxes of 12 liter bottles or 24 x 0,33 bottles in cases of beer (regional differences) this makes recycling these bottles really easy, since you have many bottles pre sorted and packed for transport. However If you buy single bottles of different companies you will most likely buy single use bottles. Because the logistics behind refilling and sorting are only ecologically viable if a bottle is reused more than 3 times. So in some cases single use bottles are ecologically better. This could be changed by standardized bottles or better infrastructure, but those things are not easy to create.

@luffirton 5 ай бұрын

For Germany it’s no problem with having single use plastic bottles since they are part of the drs scheme and since they are so convenient and 98% is returned, it makes total sense for Germany that they continue to both use them and allow them. For other areas of the world then a total ban might be the best and right solution, no one size fits all here.

@ticktricknik Жыл бұрын

How can you not include, that it is also helping homeless and similar poor people. Cans, that are thrown away get picked up by people and they even make some money of it. Its a tax on pollution and subsidy on cleaning. Pigou would be proud…

@luffirton 11 ай бұрын

Exactly it’s really going to help in so many ways

@ReadR00ster1 Ай бұрын

If homeless people are working but picking up cans off the side of the road, why not give them a job where they go door to door and pick up recycables once a week and maybe they don't have to be homeless and I don't have to take time I have precious little of in a dirty smelly backroom feeding one can at a time just to get a few bucks back from my grocery bill?

@ticktricknik Ай бұрын

@@ReadR00ster1 i totally agree, that more trash should be sellable to the state. But the trash should come from unrecycled or pulluted sources. Otherwise it doesnt fit the purpose i was trying to describe.

@benjones1717 Жыл бұрын

If you are adding work for ordinary people then it's a false economy. Glass bottles if not broken can be washed and re-used, it's the least energy intensive, any other solution just shows how shoddy a discipline economics is.

@grassytramtracks Жыл бұрын

It's hard to count on people to actually do that though, unless there's some reward for it