Why 99 percent of bottles in Germany get returned
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2021
- Around the world, one million plastic bottles are sold... every single minute. Which makes disposing of them one of the biggest environmental challenges countries face today. Germany seems to have the best system to deal with bottles - but how well does it work? And what’s holding other countries back?
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
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READ MORE:
Deposit Return Systems in Europe:
zerowasteeurope.eu/2019/07/de...
Extended Producer Responsibility: ec.europa.eu/environment/arch...
Reporter: Aditi Rajagopal
Camera & video editor: Henning Goll
Supervising editor: Joanna Gottschalk, Kiyo Dörrer
I live in germany and one of the cool things about pfand is that even if someone doesent recylce a bottle and leaves it on the ground, there will be always someone who will pick it up since its like finding free money
Jaman so muss
Cheems
There are also people who just destroy Pfanddosen for literly no reason.
Professioneller pfandsammler ;)
Olaf Schaf freut sich darüber
Empty your bottles before bringing them back. Das gibt ein Strafbier
2 more bottle beer of penalty box is 1.50€ Pfand
Die trägt einfach auch einen leeren Kasten und sagt dass der zu schwer ist
@@wuschelkopf8163 Klingt für mich nach akuter Unterhopfung
messy girl
@@wuschelkopf8163 und dann gibt sie den kasten nicht ab und nimmt ihn sieder mit...
"Ew. Ewwww. It's pretty messy"
Well not if you empty the bottle correctly, it isn't^^
That’s true she just she emptied it all over herself😂
She could also just trade the whole Beer crate in the lower part of the machine. She also would have gotten more money out of it that way.
@@armingips9403 right, totally missed that she brought an entire crate. Even easier then^^
schönes profilbild
@@armingips9403 i wonder what she has done with the crate ..
if you just put new bottles into it, the cashier would take the "pfand" for the crate too - but she (or someone else) already payed for it when buying it the first time...
We did this in America when glass was a thing (I'm 59, now). Then plastic came and that was the end of that. Plastic, single use, should be illegal.
Several states still have this system, including for plastic bottles. I live in Michigan, where the deposit is $0.10 per bottle for pretty much anything carbonated (no idea why not water bottles or juice). I recycle on my own without the system, so honestly, I despise it. It just costs me money because I'll be damned if I'm going to store and drag around boxes/bags of bottles and fuss with lines and/or machines - they just go in the normal recycling. (The deposit bottles are not sorted, cleaned, and reused by bottlers like they used to be, they're simply crushed and recycled.) That said, it works - the return rate on deposit bottles is above 90%.
We had deposits for glass bottles for many decades before the addition of reusable and single use plastic bottles in Germany. The only change was the addition of plastic bottles and aluminium cans to the system.
If not illegal then make it taxed harder than glass products. At the end of the day plastic is so much harder to recycle because there's a million different ways to make a plastic product
Single use plastic IS illegal in the EU and in Germany the law is in order since July of this year. So it’s only a recent change but I’m happy that we finally got a law for this. :)
We still have the deposit system for glass soda bottles here in the Philippines, same with beer
Danke an die Rentner und Obdachlosen, die aus einem eher traurigen Motiv all die Flaschen sammeln.
Und natürlich jedem umweltbewussten Menschen, der sie direkt im Supermarkt abgibt.
Ich bin immer auf der Suche nach Pfandflaschen und Dosen
True true
ich kenne einige ältere menschen die dies eher aus einem zeitvertreib als aus einem traurigem Motiv heraus tun.
@@chicopico817 ist ja auch irgendwie ein trauriges Motiv
Win-Win für alle…
2:52 the beer could have been return as a whole through the square on the button of the machine.. including the crate it was transported in...
yeah pretty stupid tbh, making all the spilling redundant
@@M1ssing_Link u actually can but I guess she’s kinda stupid
She wouldn't have time to talk that way :D
@@M1ssing_Link you could also just empty the bottles completely by drinking all of it! I work for a beverage market and I have to take all glass and plastic bottles by hand and count them. It's the single thing we all hate. Full bottles. Darn Americans can't event drink one whole bottle what a waste.
@@Dodonikle She's Indian lol
Fun fact:
When we are away from home, we tend to also leave used recycable bottles on top of trash bin in the Streits so homeless or poor people can collect them without getting their hands messy; depends on the situation and Environment tho..
"Pfand gehört daneben" is the "system" called. Many Cities started to implement Bottle cages/holders onto the trash bins, so that the wind can't pollute the streets or rats could get to them.
I can confirm this is true
Some brands have this even printed on their bottles :)
in bigger cities most trash cans even have stickers all over them with slogans like "pfand neben die tonne" "bottles go next to the trash can" etc etc
@@jusoda6041 Fritz Cola for example ☺️
We have done this in Finland for decades. (We started in 1952) We also recycle more than 95% of all plastic, aluminium, glass bottles and cans. Germany is not alone.
gretta brainwashed you good
@@MickenCZProfi No. Why would that happen? And in any case you microwave plastic containers all the time (does this release harmful compounds to your meals?) and you eat fish (which have plastics in them) and so on. It's not an issue and if it is, you already have that issue, there was a recent study that studied the excrement of over a hundred different humans from all across the globe and from different age groups and so on. They found plastic in ever single sample. You can't avoid plastic in the modern world. How harmful are plastics? Who the hell knows.
How does the idea of invading my country and pass similar legislation sounds like?! lmao
@@RDLFsama give them the location, and they will be there.
Finland, Germany are among the most progressive in the EU. I believe China exchanges bottles for bus fare as well. The system makes sense. Less taxes going to waste management and toward more worthwhile projects.
From someone who lives in Germany, I think it’s common sense to empty out your bottles before putting them in the Maschine. Also the Beer crate including the beer bottles inside can be deposited all at once.
This used to be done in the US until the early 1970's. As kids we collected glass bottles for the deposit.
This is still done and homeless people still collect them. Most people don't bother doing this, though, as it's simply too much work. The problem with our system is that they don't actually get recycled at the recycling plant as they are simply shipped oversea or sent to landfill nowadays, which is absolutely maddening. Also, to make people want to recycle more, we don't sort our recycling anymore, making cross contamination much more likely.
All bottles are returned, not only glass bottles.
As well, if the packaging is too abundant, you are allowed to leave the packaging material in the shop. I am not saying the German system is flawless, however, it is the reason why there is lesser junk on roadsides.
But we dont get the full deposit back it's a complete scam. (In California)
@@krollpeter All bottles...including those made of PETE? That material is difficult to recycle - reheating it to mold again doesn't work - we tried it.
An idea I have on other bottles /containers used for products like laundry soap /motor oil...have a dispenser machine at stores where consumers bring containers to be refilled. Some of those laundry soap bottles are very robust in design - would last for very long time. Doing this would be at least a start in waste reduction.
The equipment at the plant I worked at as maintenance engineer was a complete "turn key" operation...all built in Germany. I learned German language from the technical documents. (Tho - I was born /raised in a German town in Midwest USA).
👍
@@deshaunjackson8188 I don't understand not getting back full deposit? If you are getting back just partial amount it is not a complete scam. Thinking in terms of "scam" is not good - need to continue making improvements. It is, afterall, our environment that we are concerned about...correct?
I'm so proud and happy that Slovakia is joining plastic bottle deposit party starting from 1.1.2022.
Nice it's a very good step!
Ok, but a deposit alone is not the solution. Reusable is the solution
Slovakia
1.1.2022 - 31.12.2023
75% plastic bottle PET
I went to Italy for vacation a few weeks ago... I was shocked that I couldn't return my bottles at the supermarket. It was something I was used to and thought that it was only natural to bring them back.
I'm 55 and live in Canada. We have been returning our bottles and cans for my entire life. We pay a deposit and get the money back when we return the bottles and cans to a bottle depot.
You're lucky. I'm the same age and haven't seen a bottle deposit return system in the UK since I was a young child, and that only applied to bottled fizzy drinks delivered by the milkman. Other bottles didn't count.
As for tins, I once saw a little stall in a car park that offered money to buy back aluminium cans - 25 years ago. Just one man's private business. That's the only buy-back system I've ever seen for tins.
The UK really needs to get its act together.
Scotland is getting scruffy in places, but where I used to live in the south is just disgusting. Parts of South England are like open rubbish dumps now.
The ones who casually throw rubbish out their vehicle windows or leave it after a picnic are still a very serious problem.
We had only glass bottle system in Lithuania but now it includes plastic bottles and cans and each are 0.1eur
its easy when you ship your garbage to poor asian countries
I was shocked by this! I just assumed the US had the same system as Canada.
Yeah but because your a nice guy,in Germany they do this becouse MONEYY
I went on a sport tour to Germany and in our second day we learnt about the Pfand system and we ended up looking for littered bottles to get extra money so I can say it really works
Lel cus u loose 25 cents
@@Thedjalbatronics u dont lose anything, you pay 25 extra cents for every bottle and then get them back after you return the bottles in question. Taking random bottles from trashcans or other places is just giving you money in cost of your own time
@@sspilex u give your own time for 25cents... But also for recycling/world
@@Thedjalbatronics yeah pog :p
@@sspilex I had to Google what pog ist but jeah gg
Love how you guys used Haribo cola gummies in the animations. So perfect
yeah, bc they taste like plastic bottles :-)
@@HelgeKeck *cola flavored* plastic bottles
Before it was introduced in Germany, there was far more rubbish flying around everywhere. Everybody was complaining for some months. Now it is part of daily life and nobody cares. You can even donate your empty bottles to poor people. On some public trash cans there are even special rack for these bottles.
The poor people live with that money every day!!! Don't forget it
I work as a garbage collector in Berlin and me and many of my colleagues are looking in most of the garbage containers for deposit bottles(just looking, not digging for them) people just mindless threw in the trash. It‘s more than you‘d think.
But it‘s win-win. By that we are actively returning the bottles back to the cycle instead of destroying them and as a plus, we are buying water and breakfast for the truck/colleagues.
The Netherlands started recycling small plastic bottles June first 2021, cans next year.
bra get it!
Dutchie!💪🇳🇱
Denmark has been doing that for like 30 years bruh
@@albertmikkelsen1604 deposit on plastic bottles? PET etc?
Noooo cans for festivals anymore :c
“Why isn’t other countries also doing this?” All the Nordic countries does this! And in Norway there is a Red Cross lottery. You can take the cash or gamble it where if you lose the money goes to Red Cross and you can win up to a million kroner.
Thats awesome play lotto with the refund!
@@tsoxpridezz6743 Finland actually has the same!
@@Banondax i realy want this in germany too :D
@@tsoxpridezz6743 well yea but wouldnt that promote gambling? which itself isnt very "financialy" healthy imo (well given that its very easy to get addicted to it)
@@xButterflyx maybe thats right but also you would give more money to an organisation than it would give one winner and its only you 2€ refund money for me personaly it would be no big deal there is lottery advertising in television.
The 25c for pet and can is hardly a deterrent since you always return the bottle. its just a accepted cost.
never have i considered a PET bottle, vs glass, Vs can based on their Pfand.
It might have been helpful to mention at the beginning that Germany - like many other countries - already had a long-time established returns system for glass bottles. That made it easier for everyone to accept doing the same with plastic bottles.
My dad used to work in germany and we would visit him for 2 weeks during summer break at the place he worked at, along with the snacks and everything i remember being excited to go the the place where u return a crate of bottles and pay less if you try to buy a new crate, brings me nostalgia
I'm geman and as a student I often hunt for bottles on my school way.Its easy to get some money
Yeah, I did it too when I was younger, back then it was huge cash, you could comfortably get 3 - 4€ every week just on the way to school and home.
This is so cool. We did have this system in India too, but sadly, for some reasons, either due to ignorance of people or the negligence of the government, many machines are just lying around, shut down or something. 🥲🥲🥲
Companies employing single-use plastic bottles could be taxed _inversely_ based on what percentage of their bottles are returned so, if, say, 20% of their bottles were returned, they’d pay 80% of some maximum tax; if 90% of their bottles were returned, they’d pay only 10%. That way the companies would have some incentive to get those bottles into “the system.”
@@shadowmistress999 Thanks! I forgot I even wrote this comment. 😂
In denmark we have had this system for many more years than germany. I know this because i germany's drinks are alot cheaper then in denmark. So i used to drive to the border and back.
Border shops are very expensive. German supermarkets are more cheaper. Visited a border shop 3 weeks ago in Puttgarden and was shocked to see the prices..
They don't care about the danish system because it is a state monopoly, and it's doesn't sound good
@Carl Sagan the danish system is a one company has country monopoly on refund reuse bottle, it is okay for a small country, i don't know how Germany do it
you dont have this system. i life next to the danish border and all your drinks are labeled as waste and not with "pfand" expecialy your cans. so what da fuck are u talking about. even when i am in denmark everybody just throw them away.
You mean denmark?the country with a pop of 5 million compared to over 80 million? What a fcking moron
Because I was raised in Germany I was shocked when I first heard that not every country in the world has some kind of bottle-recycling system.
Dachtest du im kongo haben die pfand oder was🤣🤣🤦🏻♂️ aber nohate
Nichtmal italien hat pfand^^
I'm 52, snd as long as I remember back, my parents returned bottles for "pfand".
According to Wikipedia, the Danish "pant" - system goes back to 1942. So we're 60 years ahead of Germany.
Although Germany, to my knowledge, has pfand on way more kind of bottles, than in Denmark. Not only for ready-to-drink bottles.
The deposit on returnable bottles began in Germany in 1929.
However, a deposit on one-way bottles was only introduced in 2003.
You know what's even more hilarious than what you just said there? Mankind has been recycling material since their very beginning. And that's why in locations where mankind has been living for centuries you will see materials being reused again and again until they're no longer usable including building including tearing down brick and Stone buildings and using it elsewhere, stained glass windows have been moved from one location to another for hundreds of years, living materials like bowls or containers, toys, material, so many different things have been reused again and again. This younger generation thinks they always invented everything LOL 😂
there are actually a lot of bottles in germany, both glass and plastic, that somehow skirt around the pfand legislation. plastic oil and juice bottles, any cleaning agent containers, all glass wine bottles and jars etc... all aluminium beverage cans have pfand, but the steel food cans don't. there seems to be a trend that products less likely to be consumed outside of people's homes are less likely to have pfand - beers, water and lemonades usually do, whereas wine and juice don't. beverage cartons never do.
I'd say what's most unreasonable are the different pfand amounts for different container categories, because they don't reflect the comparative effort in collecting them from the streets like some homeless people or poor elderly people do a lot - the cans pay by far the most, plastic bottles are in the middle, and the lowest pfand per piece is paid for the heavy glass bottles.
I don't remember not returning bottles and cans, but I also live in Oregon, recycling is number one here and shit I make $$$ off of other people who don't want to mess with returning them.
@@sylviarohge4204 where the heck do you live, I thought that all of America recycled
As someone who's grandparents were used to this system at young age, it's baffling that it is less than 10 countries doing this. Also recycling worldwide in general is executed like a poor joke :/
Greenland has 97% bottle recycle rates because of the same system.
Also, Greenland is allowed to bottle Coca Cola in their own bottles.
Is it really 97%? How about wine and spirits bottles? Cooking oil, milk bottles?
@@UMORIEGA what about chairs? T-shirts? Condoms? Watches?
@@UMORIEGA wine and sprits have special Glas trashcans . And in Europe milk is always packed in paper and gets recycled as such
@@BeastOrGod In case you haven't noticed I was talking only about bottles
@@Narekz Well, there are plastic bins too. So your point? I am just wondering how can you collect 97% of bottles if many types of bottles are left out of deposit system? I guess they collect 97% of bottles that are in deposit system? Moving on, milk is not packed in paper. There are plastic milk bottles and there are Tetrapak cartons - that is basically a composite material combining layers of paper, plastic and aluminum. In theory recyclable, but in practice - very expensive, because it requires state of the art machinery and huge amounts of water.
my country does the same, but instead we get 0.10€ so some people dont bother returning them, because having to keep stash of empty bottles, having to carry them to shop, having to spend time putting them in machine and bother to go into shop to take few € doesnt seem worth it.
In Lithuania we have the same system in place. We used to have a system only for glass but a few years back they made it so you could bring in plastic bottles aswell.
I got yelled at in Mexico because I was going to throw away a glass bottle. My family had a box filled of glass bottles they took to the store and would get a few cents back per bottle. Also when I drank a pop at a vendors I couldn’t just leave the shop with the bottle I had to drink it all before leaving so they could recycle it. I was flabbergasted,
Sounds very decent. I am living in Portugal for 2 years now and I am shocked that they do not have any form of deposit here.
Good 😂😊
you guys are making an awesome work, we have to demand this kind of stuff in our countries
The first time I traveled to Germany, recycling machine really impressed me, it's so cool.
Pfand (money returen) has been in use since beginning of 1900 in countries in Europe,(1902 in Norway)
I live in Sweden but we have a similar system with plastic bottles. I have about 200 plastic bottles gathered that I've saved over the months just for this lol.
Sometimes my brother and I wander the neighborhood searching for bottles, especially if there's been a festival or celebration of some kind.
Technically I don't actually earn more money from this because we pay the extra "pant" as it's called in the stores, but it's nice to get it back. Plus the extra bottles I've picked up.
Where I live in Australia we have a Return-It centre that takes all types of bottles + caps and milk cardboards. I just wish more people would do it. But at 10¢Aus I don't think a lot of people where I live are interested in the environment. Roads are easier to dump them on.
Same thing here in Denmark. It’s such a big thing, people come here from other countries to collect the empty cans and bottles (most plastic) and collect the deposit.
In recognition of how it can be unsavoury work, some municipalities have equipped public bins with a little shelf where you can place the empty bottle so someone else can just take it from there instead of sticking their arm into the garbage.
In the summer, you can often see 3-4 people collecting bottles in popular areas and as a result, the next morning there are zero bottles lying around. Other mess, yes, but no bottles with deposit.
Why the dislikes? Americans being mad that they once had it but weren't competent enough to continue?
This is done in the us at least , I can’t speak for Canada. Also why are you assuming Americans are mad lmao
@@MsBRIEBrie100 What do you mean "This is done in THE Us", from what I recall the Us has independent states that control a fair bit of regulations in their own particular state. And eh, a fair bit of them don't do this even if some others do.
Oh and also what FBN meant with Americans being mad might've been because it is a common trend nowadays to make fun of americans being one of the most unprogressive countries in the world that also refuse to adopt solutions that will benefit the Ecosystem, because well.. Yeah I have no clue why americans are this way.
Probably because of bad education or smth.
I hope in the case that you do disagree with me, that we can sort this out in a civilized manner.
:P
@@sspilex 1. wasn’t talking to you. 2. You’re not a citizen of the states so how are you going to tell me what regulations we follow, regardless of the fact if ever state has a law. Some of us do which means it is done in the United States as I said. 3. Y’all non Americans are literally obsessed with the US so badly that you dedicated time and paragraphs to write how inferior you believe we are , even when we aren’t even the only country who doesn’t fully adopt this standard.
nope deutsche welle ist einfach Propaganda. Die meisten lassen ihren Pfand liegen das wird dann von obdachlosen und Rentnern Pfandsammlern etc aufgesammel. Das sieht man überall hier.
Grade wenn gefeiert wird vergessen viele das.
@@MsBRIEBrie100 People care about the environment way more than the us, stop acting like a victim. Accept that your country is broken, it is objectively true whether you like it or not.
Americans when they visit Europe:
"No plastic bottles on the street? that's COMMUNISM >:( "
No war crimes and no 20k student/hospital debt? Fucking commies
lol
Thats Not the reason for communism although we do live in a kind of communism here in Germany.
@@alexkruger5234 wir was bitte? Kommunismus?
Wir leben hier immernoch in einem Land das Kapital an forderster Stelle stellt, der einzige Unterschied zu den USA ist, dass dabei Menschen nicht ausgenutzt werden dürfen. Eben soziale Marktwirtschaft, das ist noch nicht mal Sozialismus.
@@Chrissy717 Nun die Definition von Kommunismus ist, dass der Staat die Kontrolle über das Handeln der Menschen hat, und dass es kein Eigentum gibt. Im reinen, puren Kapitalismus (freier Markt) gibt es nichtmal Steuern. Das widerstrebt dem Kapitalismus. Und wenn du wissen willst ob dir hier irgendwas dein Eigentum ist, dann bezahl doch mal die Steuern nicht... Dann weisste was dir gehört... Leider werden diese Begriffe komplett verwaschen und man macht den Leuten Glauben, sie wären frei. Auch im Kommunismus regiert das Kapital. Denn dort gibt es Oligarchen mit jede Menge Kapital. Nur der kleine Bürger hat keines. Ließ Mal das Buch " der Kapitalismuskomplott" 😉
I am a german and am actually storing all my bottles in the basement. It works out great as I don't have to bring them back too often and if moneys tight I can literally turn plastic into paper at any supermarket available. 😁
Beste Wertanlage für harte Zeiten :D
Ich appelliere an Sie für die Umwelt Mehrweg zu kaufen
In the Netherlands we also have this with plastic bottles and glass bottles. Next year we will also have it on aluminium cans :)
I haven't used a single PET (for water) for 2 years now. I buy glass bottles which I refill with tab water a few times until I return them. It's actually cheaper, and the water is perfectly drinkable.
Denmark has been doing this for as long as I can remember, the system is called "Pant" much like "Pfand", I don't know who started it but I guess its just good to see other nations have been doing it as well.
(Me from Germany) I thought this was normal everywhere.
i wish (-USA)
@@k4rapace874 Well, that's only your state.
Every Country should do this, also because another huge advantage of it is that the homeless and poor people can collect them. I heard that in Denmark next to the trashcans are even baskets to put in your empty bottles and cans if you dont want to return them so other can take them
casually watching this before my shift in a plastics factory lol
In the Netherlands we have these systems aswell, but like the trash recycling, companies don't recycle 99% of the time. Most trash used to be sold to China, but since that is not An option anymore a lot is burned, since it is less expensive
Burned means also recycled in eu
How much reusable is there in the Netherlands?
this is a joke
this is such an underrated channel
its a german news channel if you didn't know
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where you get drinkable water straight out of the tap, you don’t ever need to buy bottles of fizzy water again. You can carbonate your own water using something like a Sodastream - there are lots of different brands these days - and have an endless supply of carbonated water. Then you don’t have to carry heavy packs of bottles from the supermarket ever again :-)
Beer?
@@akyhne good point :-)
but you have to buy CO2 cartridges which are much more harmful to produce
@@SweatyFeetGirl These cartridges get reused for a very long time. They can easily be used to carbonate over 10000 bottles of water.
Additionally steel containers can be fully recycled, thus they are very harmless when using renewable energies in the production. Plastic bottles always have a carbon footprint and cause serious pollution.
India is banning the use of single use plastic from 2022, hope that helps. Though we need these reverse vending systems to reduce our plastic and glass waste
I've gotten so used to bottle collectors in NY that I assumed it was available in every state and 1st world country.
In PH, the deposit system works well with glass bottles for as long as I can remember.
The plastic bottles are usually picked up by the homeless & they sell it to the junk shops.
Finally someone made a story on this fantastic system.
Although you forgot to cover how wine/liquor bottles are left out of this system.
Also how this system has introduced a new revenue stream to some people.
There should be a part 2
On a closer look, surprisingly many people bring their liquor bottles and other glass material to the recycling station.
They charge the emptying of the trash can by volume. Therefore, then smaller your trash can, then lower is the fee.
But wine and liquor bottles are usually glass, and glass is recycled too, you just don't get a deposit back.
milk, juice und other non carbonated drinks arenot included in the "pfand system". this is only doe to "good" work of lobbyism.
also all pet-bottles are not recycled for new bottles, until a few years ago they went to china to make clothes and other things of it. nowadays china banned the import of pet-junk.
as a side node, the export to china was completely crazy. bottles get collected in stores, crushed and bundlet. on the harbor site they got shreddet and washed to illiminate "illigal food import" into china. in china the tiny flakes got sorted for colors by hand!, got molten und reused.
so, the german "pfandsystem" is far from perfect.
@@horstguntherludolf6357 If one considers glass bottle as a pilot project, then the pfandsystem is encouraging enough to gradually bring all other packaging into it.
From my sources it seems the pfandsystem is not economical for the supermarkets, they have to do it because of regulations.(of course producers should pay 😉)
But another side to it is the collection. With this system in place at least some of the appropriate type of recyclables are sorted at the source itself, and sent to a separate waste stream (supermarket 🙂). Generating (small) incentive for the collector/sorter should not be overlooked.
@@horstguntherludolf6357 Of the 62 Million tons PET waste in 2017, about 320,000 tons landed in China. That was partially because Chinese companies promised they would re-use it, and partially because the shipping rate for 1 ton to China was 1/4 of the cost to care for it in Germany.
Chinese companies did typically not sort the shredded fibres by hand, they just dumped that stuff into the sea or elsewhere.
The German system is not perfect, but the better thing to do and still rare in the world.
I was born, some say hatched, in Germany and spent many years there,
Germany makes it easy to recycle.
It's very simple.
Efficient, and you do it.
LOL, Not at all. Germany makes it a pain in the ass, having to carry the bottles all the way to the supermarket. I prefer the Spanish system a thousand times
@@marneus what's the spanish system?
@@marneus its hard to carry 10 plastic bottles in a bag?
@@SweatyFeetGirl without a car yes.
the most time its not 10 bottles instead of 100 sometimes.
@@dieselvonderdorf6916 if you go shopping once a week, or maybe twice like a sane person, theres no way youre gonna have 100 bottles in that time.
In a couple states in Australia literally every plastic bottle, glass bottle and aluminium can, can be sold for 10c each. The only exception are large bottles such as milk bottles and juice.
I (16/m/german) was shocked when my parents told me that we're the only country doing that
we are not the only country doing that.
There is dozens of countries.
check out the wikipedia page "Container-deposit legislation", you will find a list of countries there who had or still have the system
If Germany is so "green" than why sends it's shit to Romania in big containers claiming that it is recyclable material, but actually contains mixed waste?
Pentru ca politicienilor le plac aparentele de a fi "green".
In germany we don't say "i bring the Pfand back", we say "ich geh' mal Lohn holen" which is beautiful
:D
sowas sagt man vielleicht im Osten, wo die Leute noch darauf angewiesen sind
I wish we had such a waste management system all over the world.
South Australia started this in the early 70s, 10c each returned, sadly, no other state of aAustrali took this on till very recently, and still not all do.
Very rare to find a discarded bottle in South Australia.
Oregon in the US has long had a system in place to refund money to the consumer for recycling their bottles/cans. A few other states do as well but unfortunately the majority do not care to be bothered thus neither do consumers…
The other reason for low recycling participation is people are generally lazy.
According to Wikipedia, the return on bottles in Oregon is 0.05$.thats probably why.
In my country, Denmark, the "pfand" is 3-6 times as high, depending on the bottle. In 2020 alone, we returned 1.7 billion bottles of a population of 5.7 million. That's almost 300 bottles per capita.
@@akyhne I had to look up “pfand”, I understand now it’s an extra charge when you purchase a bottle. Thank you for the eye opening information on your country’s recycling. Perhaps someday we could all do so well.
@@hughwolfe1176 Yeah, now that I think of it, maybe it wasn't that clear in the video as well.
Yes, it's an extra fee, that you have to pay (by law) for some bottles, like soda and beer bottles of any kind (alu, plastic & glass), and you get your money back, when you return the bottles - usually in automated machines.
You then get a print-out with a bar-code, and when you're about to pay for groceries in the same store, you hand over the print - out to the cashier and the amount will be withdrawn from your bill.
You can also in many stores, with automated bottle systems click on a "give to homeless" button.
We don't have a lot of homeless or poor people here in Denmark, but some of them are out on the streets at night, collecting bottles. Some can make $50 or more per night, especially on weekends, where drunk, young people just leave their beer bottles for them om the streets.
@@akyhne actually, Oregon changed the deposit to 10 cents in 2017, but I agree it's still way too low. We also used to require all stores that sell redeemable beverages in a bottle to take empty ones back and provide the deposit. Then we created special redemption centers that any stores within a radius of them no longer have to take bottle returns anymore. They have a few more return machines than the average grocery used to have, so the lines there are A LOT longer to have to wait in. But they have a system where you can drop off a bag of bottles, which they will count for you and automatically deposit the money into an account for you in about a week, which charges 30% of the return. This new system just decreased the rate of recycling overall, but another company is profiting, so who cares, right?
That’s why this system is good an incentive
It's the perfect circle. I get my bags full of the empty bottles and go do my weekly shopping. Bring back my bottles and use the money for my shopping. I help the planet and since I buy new bottles of water, it's basically a win win for anyone. Rinse and repeat.
In Norway we pay a depositum upfront separate from the cost of the bottle.
There’s a campaign in Germany called „Pfand gehört daneben“ which means you put the bottles not in the public trashbin but rather next to it so poor people can easily collect it and turn it in.
I didnt know about this. But did it anyway. Sometimes at the Trainstation i put the bottel on the ground and not even 5 minutes later its gone.
How does your country deal with bottles? And does it actually work?
For the usa its by state nv were im at grate resicaling only 20 to 60% gets resicaled california 5 to 15% and ny is um 40 to 70% so it very here
Denmark has been doing this for aaaaages
100% the same system in Denmark. who did they research on this video?
Malaysia has unfortunately lack of infrastructure to recycle plastic bottles. I believe it's only 1% of total single-use plastics is abled to recycle, mainly the numbers 1 & 2 inside that triangle symbol.
If this is the first time I'm hearing a deposit system of plastic bottles, Malaysia has yet to implement it despite the environmental department having the knowledge & awareness of plastic pollution.
For now, I speculate around 10% of total population here has purchased reusable tumbler/thermal bottles. But it's not enough for plastic (bottle) pollution is still around lurking somewhere in unknown villages & its rivers. Klang River being one of them.
@@ChristianW1975 Yup! Around 20 other countries have some version of the DRS at the moment :)
Así era en México, con casi cualquier tipo de bebida. En la década del 90 las empresas cambiaron al plástico de un solo uso .
Das ist sehr schlecht fast überall auf der Welt sieht man nur noch Einweg, Deutschland ist noch das Land in den Mehrweg wegen der Einheitsflasche am besten funktioniert, aber leider kaufen immer Mehr Einweg weil es billig ist
We have done this in Denmark since 1942 and we have the most efficient recycle program in the world. It is so efficient that 99.99% of a bottle or a can is recycled meaning 1 can makes a new can.
Population of 5 million against 80 million, if you dont see the GIGANTIC difference then you are a complete moron
Another good thing about the system is that the few homeless in the streets collect the bottles someone has left behind and return them, so they have a small income and I dont have to worry about the bottle I carry bc I can give it to a homeless/poor that is collecting them
This was very common in big public areas when I went to Germany a few years ago
Aditi Rajagopal your Work is Amazing!!! Keep it Up!
I'm loving this channel! but just tone down the background music, it's so high making it annoying to listen
Thanks for your feedback, we will look into it.
I have to agree. I had to switch off the sound and read subtitles because I couldn't understand what was being said.
A lot of people do get their bottle into recycling, the problem is companies will lose money trying to recycle the low grade plastic so they choose to throw it out.
The dumb thing about reusable plastics costing more is that those are the only ones being returned because they are very light and have the most deposite
We’ve had the system in Denmark for over 50 years!
Added: I see some of my compatriots beat me to it.
Yeah, I'm 52, snd as long as I remember back, my parents returned bottles for "pfand".
According to Wikipedia, the Danish "pant" - system goes back to 1942. So we're 60 years ahead of Germany.
Although said, Germany, to my knowledge, has pfand on way more kind of bottles, than in Denmark. Not only for ready-to-drink bottles.
I can do you one better; We have done this in Finland for longer. (We started in 1952)
@@RogueSecret Oh cool, even better!
And Pfand has the amazing side effect of helping our elder population to survive Hartz IV. It's a win-win situation!
i remember as a kid me and my cousin collected dozens of glass bottles from all around the countryside, from all the drunks leaving em left n right we brought them to the store and got a few euro. not good money even as a kid, but hey it got me ice cream.
a bottle would go for like 3 4 cents as well, so good job done for not even that much. good way to introduce peeps to greener living.
Very similar to Croatia. Each bottle (plastic, glass, or metal) can be exchanged for 50 lipa (some 7 Eurocents). Our recycling rate could be up to 100%.
In DW has many indian origin reporter's then any other international news channel ☺️☺️🥰
☺️☺️
I love germany!
They might collect 95% other bottles but only recycle 16% of all their recyclable waste.
Simple solution. Governments must require the drinks companies remove the same weight of plastic as they sell.
Pfand is really cool. As kids we used to get the task from our parents to bring the Pfand to the supermarket, allowing us to keep the money we got. That was a great way to earn pocket money, especially when you had cases of stuff. It also teaches you a lot regarding care for the environment and care for the poor, since when you weren´t at home, you d put the Pfand-Bottles next to the trashcan, so poor people could pick them up and get some money out of it.
I live in Denmark and we have the same system, so does Sweden and Norway, and probably more, difference is in Denmark you can also recycle aluminum unlike Germany
In Germany, there are two ways to recycle Aluminium: If it's a deposit drinking can you get 25 ct by bringing it back to the Shop or you discard it with all Kind of metall into a Special Trash bin / bag, then it's recycled.
We have this in oregon and its great, more states should do this
I believe they have something similar like this in Japan as well. But it’s mostly the homeless that collect the recyclables instead of begging.
You can even have them picked up if you have groceries delivered. Usually you empty them fully, so it is not messy upon returning ;) Its a simple system and it works. And because it is 8-25cts per piece even less fortunate people (e.g. those who chose to live on the streets rather than on social security) support by collecting them in parks or next to public garbage cans for extra easy money.
I'm German, you get 25 cents for a plastic bottle, if you put a bottle on a bank in Germany, someone will take it within 2 minutes (that's free money) 💰😀
You have the same system in the Netherlands, it's crazy to me that this isn't normal
NY has a bottle deposit law and I made so much money finding and returning bottles I was able to buy groceries and pay for my laundry in college. Plus it reduces pollution! Why are our politicians not requiring this? ??????
As a German, it really hurt to see her cruh that bottle.
You know that you can just put the whole box with bottles in the machine? There is a deposit on the frame as well.
One guy had guts to go against big corporations
This is our campaign too in the Philippines.. to quit using single-use plastics..
Denmark have also been doing this forever. we have very little pastik and glass bottles not returned. and if any go in to the bin. there are always people looking true the trash for bottles.
My nation is finally going to start something like this.
Thank you for this information
One thing I will say is that Scotland hasn't "just" adopted a pfand style system, certainly we had a similar system with several manufacturers for many years with glass bottles which the largest company which used the system stopped in 2015 due to the rise in home recycling. At it's height 90% of glass bottles included in the scheme were returned to retailers for re-use, for which the retailer would offer a small amount of store credit (10p, later 20p) for each bottle & a lot of us have memories of the "gingies" both good (sweets!) & less so when they were cashed in cos money was tight & food needed put on the table.
The Pfand system started in 2003. Oregon's bottle deposit system started in 1971. It's more than twice as old.
We in the Czech Republic do it with glass bottles. PET bottles have no deposit, but we sort 93% of them anyway. Current issue in my country are aluminium cans - there is no deposit and only 15% of them are sorted.
Outside of the West, bottled water is often the only way to get clean water to drink, with few ways to refill the bottles (if refilling was an easy option, the bottles wouldn't be needed in the first place). That means, providing clean drinking water is the solution to the plastic bottle problem for most of the world.
No it’s not, in Germany the water is drinkable and still nearly everyone buys water bottles.
Abs even if they would just take the water that they have at home they would still buy soda bottles and beer