Plastic Bottle Recycling

It will I think depend on the size of the deposit. Which I think should start at 20p.

Still cannot see it having true effect. If I was walking about with bottled water etc I would retain the bottle, as with any other waste, until I returned to the car or found a bin. Those that simply discard such will not carry to a recycle facility for 20p. I would not either as I would discard either in nearest bin or, if available, a recycle bin. 

 

I'm guessing that anybody of my generation will be a bit cynical about the current issue regarding plastic packaging of foodstuffs.  During our childhood, we've all probably taken the empty pop bottles back to the shop to boost our pocket money, and our parents always washed and put the empty milk bottles out for the milkman to collect.  We took a shopping bag with us when we went to the corner store although some bigger shops would provide you with a paper carrier bag which had string handles.

I recently watched a short clip on a news item whereby numerous shoppers at a supermarket unwrapped all the goods from their plastic packaging and left it behind in the store for them to dispose of.  

I do think that the retailers ought to take more responsibility for this problem rather than load it on to the consumer.

The user and all related content has been Deleted User

When I was a young lad I used to walk along Hastings seafront looking for empty bottles to take back to the shop. Only problem was that shops could only return a certain number to the supplier.  This meant they wouldn't always accept them. Otherwise they were out of pocket having to refund the money which they could not get back. Also coca cola bottles for example came in different designs, some clear glass, some with a green tint, whilst others had the name in white. You had to get to know which shop sold which type or they wouldn't take them. I wonder how the plastic scheme will work and if you will have to take them back to the same shop they came from. 

Funnily enough we've just returned from Germany visiting our son and experienced this.   We thought it was a great idea.    Son and wife collect the bottles in large shopping bags and take them to be cashed in regularly, in fact whilst we were there they reclaimed 11 euros back which is helpful to them as they are on a tight budget.     We both agreed that this should happen in the UK, happy to pay slightly more to faciltate this.

The downside we noticed was that in the towns, there appeared to be a large number of people, mainly vagrant/homeless types rooting around in public bins to try and find them to cash in which is such a shame that they feel it necessary to do so.

To introduce such a scheme would be very costly and I wonder who the Government expect to pay for it? Whilst imposing an extra tax on such containers would be relatively easy to deal with by retailers I am not so sure they could be expected to foot the bill for the necessary infrastructure. That means the Government itself would have to cough up the money. But would they be willing to do that because as soon as the scheme was in action it would be a zero benefit game for them as people would get back what they put in. Would it not be better to introduce a relatively small tax, say 5p a container, and use that money to invest in total recycling schemes whereby all rubbish is collected as one and mechanically sorted at the recycling facilities. There is an element of confusion by many members of the public as to what can be recycled which probably means more goes to landfill than is necessary. I suspect, as a country, we have been a bit over hyped by Blue Planet where the real problems are thousands of miles away and won't be improved by the UK making things more complicated?

David

German system explained for children 

http://www.ukgermanconnection.org/kids-bottle-recycling-machines

https://medium.com/@liveworkgermany/the-german-pfand-bottle-recycling-system-how-does-it-work-and-is-it-effective-436972a2e0a3

Oneputt

Thanks for the second link in particular which perhaps needs passing on to Michael Gove!!! One question I have is whether in Germany they have as highly developed recycling household collections as we do in the UK? Perhaps because of the Pfand system it is not as everyone gets used to taking bottles back to the supermarket rather than but them out for the bin man? I hadn't quite appreciated that they have so many reusable plastic bottles in Germany. I don't think that has even been thought of as part of the current discussions. Be interesting to know how the Norway system differs from Germany?

David

We used this system in Germany years ago. Quite simple when going shopping take bag with empty bottles, (we all have to have bags nowadays) feed bottles into machine get money out, go in shop buy more bottles. What's a pita about that.

When we first went to Germany it was something similar with glass bottles, we used to buy our soft drinks and beer in a 'Getranke' shop, these were usually along side the supermarket. Buy in a crate, beer in one soft drinks in another, take crate back next time shopping and replace.

IMO some folk in this country are just lazy, its these folk that need educating and if this scheme works elsewhere then why not here.

We need to educate them. Kids will always be happy to collect and take back if it means money in their pockets, but it needs parents/teachers/scouts groups etc to encourage them to do so.

The biggest plus of this surely is that less plastic will get into our waterways and oceans 

DK from what I remember of our sons time living in Germany, their recycling was very comprehensive and strict. They had in the home 4 recycle bins, one of them was for plastic that wasn't returned to the shops.