Returnable bottles: successes and limits of a widespread system in Germany and Denmark

The deposit system for glass containers will be piloted starting June 12 in four French regions: Pays de la Loire, Brittany, Normandy, and Hauts-de-France. Consumers will be able to return their packaging to the operation's partner stores (Monoprix, Carrefour, Intermarché, Biocoop, Système U, Leclerc, Auchan, etc.). They will receive between 20 and 30 cents per bottle.

The goal is to collect and wash 30 million glass containers, which can then be reused between 20 and 50 times. According to Citeo, the company responsible for implementing the deposit system , this will save 75% of energy, 50% of water, and reduce CO2 emissions by 80%.

While initiatives in France are currently focused on glass, some more advanced European countries have also extended this deposit system to disposable packaging, such as cans and plastic bottles. This has been the case for over twenty years in Germany and Denmark. However, this system is now under fire.

In Germany, the deposit system for glass bottles was reintroduced in the 1990s and was extended to other types of recyclable packaging in 2003. This habit has truly become part of everyday life. Germans have taken to returning their bottles, cans and yogurt pots to the "Pfandautomat" , these machines that are required to be installed at the entrance to every supermarket. It is not uncommon to see students or people in precarious situations, wanting to make ends meet, emptying entire trolleys of this deposit-returnable waste into these machines, after having collected them in parks.

The amount collected for each package varies between 8 and 15 cents for reusable containers and can reach 25 cents for single-use containers (cans, non-reusable plastic and glass bottles, yogurt pots, etc.). The overall collection rate is around 98.5%, according to the European Consumer Centre. This is one of the best in Europe.

By extending deposits to single-use packaging, Germany hoped to encourage their recycling, but the measure has had a perverse effect. It has encouraged the use of this type of product. The share of reusable bottles placed on the market in Germany has drastically decreased over the past twenty years, falling from 58% in 2003 to only 24% today, in favor of returnable but disposable containers. However, while the latter are certainly better collected and recycled than before, they remain more polluting .

In Denmark, the deposit system has an even older tradition. For glass bottles, it dates back to the 1970s. The country even followed this measure in 1982 with a ban on single-use beverage containers, such as metal cans and plastic bottles. But this ban was overturned by the European Union in 1999, citing single market rules that permitted these types of packaging.

To mitigate the negative effects of the reintroduction of plastic cans and bottles, Denmark extended its deposit system to all beverage containers in 2002. At the heart of this system is the Dansk ReturSystem, a non-profit organization responsible for collecting deposit-paid cans and bottles (with the PANTS logo) from collection points and then reselling them to companies specializing in their recycling to produce new packaging.

As in Germany, the return rate for returnable items is very high, around 98%. But like its neighbor, the country has also seen an explosion in disposable and recyclable packaging, which now represents 86% of the returnable beverage market. Beverage producers, including the many Danish brewers, who pushed for the introduction of deposits for reusable glass in the 1970s, now prefer disposable packaging, which is easier to use (fewer complex processes to set up, less associated equipment, less inventory management).