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by rndgermandude 1647 days ago
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.

1 comments

> 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