Abroad, they long ago realized that simply throwing away garbage is too expensive
Saturday morning is rush hour at grocery stores. Queues form at the entrance. But people are not waiting for sausage – they stand with huge bags filled with plastic bottles and cans, waiting for the empty container return machine to become free.
As Deutsche Welle writes, for each container with the appropriate label, consumers receive 25 cents. This money they paid as a "deposit" when they bought the drinks. So, throwing a bottle in the trash would mean throwing away money. Therefore, shoppers do not mind collecting empty bottles at home and returning them via the machine at the store entrance or inside.
The receipt obtained is then presented at the checkout – the money is either deducted from the purchase amount or paid out in cash. In some supermarkets, you can press a corresponding button on the machine and donate the money for the returned containers to free meals for the needy.
A tradition since 2003
The corresponding system for the circulation of plastic and metal containers has been in place since 2003. It was introduced when the party "Alliance 90/The Greens" was in power for the first time in German history. This was the politicians' response to the problem of environmental littering.
"Before 2003, about three billion units of such beverage containers were thrown away and littered the environment," recalls Thomas Fischer from the organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe (German Environmental Aid). Today, about 98 percent of container units are returned by customers to stores. "A higher quota cannot be achieved," Fischer says in an interview with DW.
The introduction of a deposit on beverage containers was gradual – depending on the content of the bottles. For a long time, juice sellers were exempt from the deposit. To this day, no deposit is required for milk bottles. But in 2024, the transition period will end, and a deposit will have to be paid when purchasing any drink in plastic or metal containers.
This does not apply to glass containers. They can either be returned to the store for 8 cents each or simply thrown into a special glass container. Glass is disposed of in containers depending on its color – green, white, or brown. The presence or absence of a deposit depends on the type of beverage. For example, beer in a glass bottle has an 8-cent deposit, while wine bottles do not. They are simply thrown into the glass waste.
The long journey of reusable containers
Reusable bottles are collected by wholesale beverage distributors and taken to a sorting facility. There, bottles are sorted according to shape and color and taken to beverage producers. There, bottles are thoroughly washed and refilled for further sale. According to the Federal Environment Agency, glass bottles can be used up to 50 times. Plastic reusable bottles have a life cycle of 25 times.
Disposable plastic bottles and metal cans are usually pressed directly in the container return machine – to save space for transportation. Pressed plastic bottles are taken to plastic recycling plants, where they are shredded and processed into plastic granules. These granules can then be used to make any plastic products. Plastic granules certified as safe for food products have a higher value than ordinary recycled plastic. Because from this material, bottles can be remanufactured without having to re-certify their safety for human health.
How environmentally friendly is the recycling of disposable bottles?
The German food market is dominated by two retailers from the discount segment – Aldi and Lidl. These giant supermarket chains have bet on disposable beverage containers, pointing to modern plastic recycling technologies. This has significantly reduced the volume of bottle reuse.
"If we want to be competitive, we have to sell our drinks in discounters too," says Uwe Kleinert from Coca-Cola Deutschland. So, since 2015, when discounters started selling drinks only in disposable containers, Coca-Cola's bottle reuse rate fell from 56 to 42 percent, according to calculations by the German Environmental Aid organization.
Whether it is a reusable or disposable bottle – both environmentally friendly recycling and reuse save resources and carbon dioxide emissions, says Gerhard Kotschik from the Federal Environment Agency in an interview with DW. Nevertheless, environmentalists criticize the retailers' decision to use only disposable bottles. Because not all plastic bottles are reused yet. A significant portion is still simply incinerated.
Moreover, experts remind that during plastic recycling, part of the material is lost. Therefore, a self-sufficient cycle of recycling and reuse of plastic is impossible. This means that significant amounts of oil must continue to be used to produce new plastic. "On average, plastic bottles currently contain about 26 percent recycled material," says Thomas Fischer from Deutsche Umwelthilfe. According to him, 70 percent of plastic bottles contain no recycled material at all.
At the same time, from an environmental perspective, the reuse of bottles makes sense only if the bottle is washed, refilled, and sold in the same region. Otherwise, long-distance transportation negates all environmental benefits due to carbon dioxide emissions.
Economically unviable?
Although the law requires sellers and producers to indicate whether a bottle is reusable or disposable, consumers often do not understand this. Surveys have shown that 42 percent of Germans are convinced that all bottles they return to stores are refilled.
However, it is more profitable for sellers to send plastic for recycling in order to save on logistics. At the same time, the secondary use of plastic for production under market conditions makes no economic sense, since making bottles from primary raw materials – oil – is cheaper than from recycled granules. Therefore, legislators resolved this issue by setting a quota for the reuse of plastic for container production. From 2025, bottle manufacturers will have to produce at least 25 percent of bottles from granules made from recycled bottles. From 2030, this quota will be 30 percent.
Profit from unreturned bottles
The most profitable for beverage sellers, of course, is when customers pay a deposit for bottles and do not return them. Of the 16.4 billion disposable bottles and cans sold annually in Germany, about 180 million are not returned. That is about 1.5 percent. However, the real benefit from this is only gained by large chains that produce their own beverage containers under their own brands.
In contrast, for smaller retailers, the system of circulation and recycling of containers is in any case associated only with costs. Because they receive only 25 cents per bottle from customers. Instead, they themselves are forced to pay manufacturers or wholesale suppliers 25 cents plus value-added tax. Thus, the state budget benefits from the bottle circulation system.