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by tobltobs 1643 days ago
It is 25 cent for glas, plastic bottles or cans in Germany.
2 comments

I really wish it was that easy, but it's not.

Single-use containers are 25 cents, indeed, but a lot of the stuff you will buy is multi-use, and there things vary. Multi-use plastic bottles and large glass bottles usually have a 15 cents deposit, and small beer glass bottles it is only 8 cents, unless they have a clip-lock (Flensburger e.g.) then it's 15 cents again. Vine bottles are extremely confusing, ranging from no deposit, to 2 or 3 cents, to 15 cents.

I saw a lot of bottle collector people skip glass bottles, in particular beer bottles. I live close to a minor league football (soccer) stadium that also hosts the local American Football team and various other events, and bottle collectors are a constant sight before, during and after the games and events. The two closest city tram stops are quite often still littered all over with multi-use beer bottles even days after, because bottle collectors do not like those things. Too heavy and bulky at only 8 cents. People "litter" deliberately, being told the bottle collector people will be happy and thankful for the easy collection...

If I remember correctly, this difference in deposit amount was justified by reasoning lower multi-use deposits compared to single-use deposits would drive the adoption of multi-use. I don't think it has done that much, not really. When single-use deposits became a thing, a lot of single-use containers vanished completely, but once the collection systems got established a lot of it just returned.

I personally would outlaw most types of single-use containers, especially for "cold" beverages, and actually make the deposits all the same amount. That would have a far better and greater impact than bickering about outlawing plastic straws, at the very least. And a glass beer bottle might be worth picking up if it's 25 cents you get for it instead of 8.

> Single-use containers are 25 cents, indeed, but a lot of the stuff you will buy is multi-use, and there things vary. Multi-use plastic bottles and large glass bottles usually have a 15 cents deposit, and small beer glass bottles it is only 8 cents, unless they have a clip-lock (Flensburger e.g.) then it's 15 cents again. Vine bottles are extremely confusing, ranging from no deposit, to 2 or 3 cents, to 15 cents.

To add to all of that confusion; Some brands of yogurt in glass jars also have a deposit on them, while most other yogurt glasses don't.

Right, indeed. Glass jars (usually) have a deposit when they are "multi-use", while single-use plastic containers (and some single-use glass ones) do not. I lost many euros thanks to that, because I didn't know for a long time, and dumped my yogurt glass jars into the normal glass collection containers. It would have been easy to collect the deposits, since I am doing that for all the bottles I use anyway. :P
Nope, glass bottles are just 8 cents.
Glass bottles are 8 cents, if they are re-use. Re-use glass bottles with a clip closure are 15 cent (and there are still some other kind of bottles with 15 cent). If they are only single use, they are 25 cents (e.g. beer from Lidl).