Comments on: recycling

By: Anon Co-operator

Anon Co-operator — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:31:04 +0000

A similar scheme operates in some parts of Australia - and the homeless did benefit in some ways, getting money for doing the recycling.

But the problem will remain of recycling not being 100% - but you will always get those who don’t want to do it, no matter how easy it is made - even with kerbside bottle recycling provided, which we don’t have at the moment (see comment made earlier).

By: Anon Co-operator

Anon Co-operator — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:27:42 +0000

Kerbside recycling something I have been banging on about for years - why has it not happened? I suppose we would need to identify the reasons why deposits were scrapped. If people do not want to claim their deposits back, OK. But if it comes down to funding, why not “tender” any collection of bottles or whatever out to charities and community organisations? This way the community benefits in so many ways.

By: Steve Goodrich

Steve Goodrich — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:13:40 +0000

They run a refund-recycle scheme in Germany that seems to work quite well. As they only sell drinks in glass bottles it enables numerous full-life-cycles requiring only washing before re-use. An excess charge is levied (up to around 1/4 of the price of the drink e.g.50cents) on initial payment for the item e.g. bottle of beer, which is refunded upon presentation to a place accepting them. The item doesn’t need to be returned to the place of purchase, which provides another dimension to the scheme.

Quite of lot of bottles aren’t returned, despite the levy, and so are left around on the streets (it’s legal to drink responsibly on the streets). This enables those who are short on money, for example students, the homeless etc. to collect the bottles en mass and cash in on the recycling. I haven’t yet found a fault in it (apart from its potential to fuel alcoholism). Next time you’re in Germany keep an eye out for signs next to prices that say “Pfand”!