Today’s Global Perspective Post is from Finely’s brother, Coleman, who is living in Germany. Thank you Coleman!
“An important and rather obvious part of keeping the environment clean is keeping it litter free. A particularly egregious type of litter is from materials that are otherwise reusable or recyclable e.g. plastic bottles or glasses. As a six-year resident of the city of Dresden, DE one of the things I’ve come to appreciate most is the absence of litter in parks and green public spaces, especially in the spring and summer when picnic lunch in the park is so common. The German container disposal system or Einwegpfand are a big reason why they are able to keep these spaces so nice. There is an 8c Pfand (deposit) on all reusable glass bottles and a 25c Pfand on non reusable glass and plastic ones. Containers can be brought to any grocery store and are quickly processed through an automated scanner that prints out a voucher. The good price on bottles and the ease of use of this system makes it effective.
The system even provides a significant source of extra income to some people. It is not uncommon to see a dozen or so people walking through the park just as the sun goes down cleaning up and collecting hundreds of bottles. By the time the last picnickers have left the park it is already clean!
While similar systems are in place in many European countries, the German system is particularly effective with 98.5% of bottles manufactured finding their way back, which is the highest rate for any country.
In the US there are ten states with a glass return system. Some other states like Massachusetts and Texas attempted to implement one, only to see their efforts fail under pressure from the beverage and retail industry. The Germans faced similar pressure from lobbying groups, and the government ended up winning a court case in 2002 which allowed them to implement the system for non refillable bottles.
For more information about container disposal laws in the US visit http://www.bottlebill.org/ and for a similar info in Europe go to www.zerowasteeurope.eu. ”
Photo from https://periodika.osu.cz/odraz/wp-content/uploads/Elbe.jpg
