In many countries people collect their own bottles because there is a refundable tax on the container. Here in Ireland it’s 15c, i.e. a can of coke might be €1 but you’ll be charged €1.15. So it motivates people to take the empties back to a supermarket and receive a refund chit. It also motivates homeless people to pick up bottles & cans that people toss, so that too.
That’s an idea, but it requires the incentive to be more than people… let’s call it laziness. I see people drop their trash in front of an empty trashcan on the regular.
Regarding plastic bottle deposit, a quick search (https://www.statista.com/chart/22963/global-status-of-plastic-bottle-recycling-systems/) around 30 countries had such a system in place, with varying degrees of success, with only 10 US states. That’s not a lot. In France, we also had this for glass bottle. It was discontinued long ago but we’re looking to bring it back. Let’s hope this do motivate people, although I don’t have my hopes up.
Germany collects glass, plastic & aluminium. Glass and plastic can be single use or multiuse. It’s kind of interesting how most beer is sold multi-use (every brand is using the same size bottles) to reduce the amount of recycling necessary. Beer bottles can be washed and reused rather than broken into cullet and remelted. I don’t know what France does but I could see people losing their minds if wine bottles were standardised the way beer is. But really glass could be collected and recycled even if it isn’t reusable.
In many countries people collect their own bottles because there is a refundable tax on the container. Here in Ireland it’s 15c, i.e. a can of coke might be €1 but you’ll be charged €1.15. So it motivates people to take the empties back to a supermarket and receive a refund chit. It also motivates homeless people to pick up bottles & cans that people toss, so that too.
That’s an idea, but it requires the incentive to be more than people… let’s call it laziness. I see people drop their trash in front of an empty trashcan on the regular.
Regarding plastic bottle deposit, a quick search (https://www.statista.com/chart/22963/global-status-of-plastic-bottle-recycling-systems/) around 30 countries had such a system in place, with varying degrees of success, with only 10 US states. That’s not a lot. In France, we also had this for glass bottle. It was discontinued long ago but we’re looking to bring it back. Let’s hope this do motivate people, although I don’t have my hopes up.
Germany collects glass, plastic & aluminium. Glass and plastic can be single use or multiuse. It’s kind of interesting how most beer is sold multi-use (every brand is using the same size bottles) to reduce the amount of recycling necessary. Beer bottles can be washed and reused rather than broken into cullet and remelted. I don’t know what France does but I could see people losing their minds if wine bottles were standardised the way beer is. But really glass could be collected and recycled even if it isn’t reusable.