‘Huge disappointment’ as UK delays bottle deposit plan and excludes glass
‘Huge disappointment’ as UK delays bottle deposit plan and excludes glass
Scheme for plastic bottles and cans put back to 2027 while environment minister says glass recycling ‘unduly’ complex
For our ocean’s sake, we can’t keep kicking the can – or bottle – down the road. We call on the UK government to speed up this law and to follow Wales’s ambition to include plastic, metal and glass.”
The "ocean's sake"?
Glass doesn't float. If it winds up in the ocean, one just gets beach glass.
In fact, we had a place up in California where a beach was being directly used as a dump once. The only remaining stuff, after the metal had rusted away and such, was glass, and it all got turned into beach glass. The state went from trying to stop people from dumping things on the beach to banning people hauling away the beach glass; it had become a tourist attraction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Beach_(Fort_Bragg%2C_California)
Glass bottle recycling is about reuse. Wash the bottle and use it again.
In the UK off-licenses (liquor stores) used to partake in a scheme where they'd take your empties and give you money off your next purchase. Those bottles were then sent back to the bottling plant to be reused. It went away with the wide spread use of plastic bottles (80s).
Aas far as I'm aware, there's no reason not to do it again except the distribution network is more centralised now, and sending stuff back is something nobody budgets for. I expect this is the "too complicated aspect".
there’s no reason not to do it again except the distribution network is more centralised now, and sending stuff back is something nobody budgets for
So I’ve heard that’s the main issue with reusing glass bottles now. Drink bottling is more centralised which means higher transport costs to return them, making it uneconomical. When it used to be done here bottles would return to a more local bottling plant.
My interpretation is that by excluding glass from the scheme, this may incentivise consumers to buy plastic instead. Some of which will inevitably end up in the ocean.
The thing with bottle deposits is: it really only annoys the people who generally already do the right thing anyway.
Here in the Netherlands, we expanded bottle deposits to cans and small bottles last year. A 15-25 cent deposit.
It’s causing all sorts of problems: deposit machines are breaking down in record numbers and there’s too few of them. A lot of places sell cans and bottles, but a lot of them don’t take returns. This means that it’s a giant hassle to return the cans and bottles, so a lot of people now just see it as a price increase and don’t bother with the return.
The deposit also causes MORE litter in the streets. How? Because we’ve effectively incentivised the homeless and drug addicts to break open trash bins and search for cans and bottles. They break one open, tear out the trashbag, dump the contents and take the bottles. Which attracts rats, since they leave the rest. My city now regularly looks like a garbage dump.
Meanwhile, some call it a succes because ‘there’s fewer bottles and cans on the streets’, while conveniently ignoring literally all the other trash that now gets dumped on it.
I’d honestly vote today to abolish the deposit scheme. Sounds good on paper, but in practice I’m only seeing downsides.
The thing with bottle deposits is: it really only annoys the people who generally already do the right thing anyway.
I recycle everything possible (including tetrapacks and pill tray thingies) so all this is doing is taxing me for doing the right thing or causing me extra hassle dragging everything down to the local bottle return machine that may or may not be working.
The deposit scheme in Germany is a huge cash cow as people pay for the deposit but then never return the container or the container gets destroyed, label comes off and gets rejected by the machine, etc.
And as you said, people leave empty bottles around public bins for homeless people to collect. However, this slowly became an accepted method of “income” for them and you see them checking every rubbish bin for empty bottles. (If a bottle isn’t quite empty, they’ll empty it onto the pavement.) And there are even territorial fights.
Also, lots of fraud with fake deposit coupons (you deposit the bottles in a machine, machine prints a coupon and you take that coupon to the till where you get your money - people now find someone with a label printer and print fake coupons to cash in).
And I loathe having to carry an empty plastic bottle around all day when I’m not near any place to return it. You can’t even squish it as then the machine won’t accept it. Which also means you’re taking huge bags of air to the store every few weeks.
I don’t see any issues with empty bottles and cans around London. Definitely not more than in Berlin. So I can only assume this scheme was proposed so that a few people can fill their pockets with the expected money. As always.
And as you said, people leave empty bottles around public bins for homeless people to collect. However, this slowly became an accepted method of “income” for them and you see them checking every rubbish bin for empty bottles. (If a bottle isn’t quite empty, they’ll empty it onto the pavement.) And there are even territorial fights.
The alleged fights aren't great but other than that, what is the problem? People that go around recycling bottles don't seem too bad. It's not like anyone gets hurt by a homeless person that looks down a bin. Does it matter if someone empties a bottle on the pavement? It's a few centilitres at max and it's better than throwing the bottles in the bin.
Also, lots of fraud with fake deposit coupons (you deposit the bottles in a machine, machine prints a coupon and you take that coupon to the till where you get your money - people now find someone with a label printer and print fake coupons to cash in).
Aren't your machines printing out coupons with unique barcodes? If not, that's incredibly stupid.
I don’t see any issues with empty bottles and cans around London. Definitely not more than in Berlin.
The point of the system is primarily to stop people from throwing the bottles and cans in the trash. So that's where all the bottles are in London. The recycling rate for plastics in the UK is around 40% while countries with a deposit for bottles have a recycling rate closer to 80-90% (depending on the country, so some might be even lower but probably still far above 40%)
I'm surprised it works so poorly for you.
It works extremely well in Sweden. The machines occasionally break down but it's no big deal and probably every single grocery store accepts bottles. I have never seen a homeless person tear open a garbage bag or anything similar. They just look down the bin and take out like max 3 bottles.
88,5 % of bottles and cans sold are returned and recycled.
The problem in the Netherlands sounds more like a skill issue than anything else.
Oh absolutely! Dutch politicians tend to suck at actually implementing new rules that work.
I've heard about excellent results in some of the nordic countries like Sweden. From what I understand, you/they have machines where you can easily deposit a large amount of cans/bottles. We don't have those here.
Our Dutch machines are basically retrofitted ones that used to just take in large 1-2 liter bottles. You have to put in one bottle at a time. That wasn't a problem when they only handled big bottles, but now with cans and small bottles, there's issues. For one, it takes ages to deposit cans. Because you have to put one at a time in. This means that if you're stuck behind someone who's depositing two large garbage bags, it's going to take a while. Also, because the cans are rarely really empty, the machines also get very sticky and break down a lot. In some supermarkets, they basically stop fixing the machines on busy days because... it's just too annoying. So this means that it's always a hassle to get your deposit back.
There's also other issues like: cans can't be dented in any way, or it won't read them. And not every machine takes every deposit item. I.e. if you bought it at supermarket A and supermarket B doesn't sell it... they won't take back the item and give back the deposit. (To be clear, they SHOULD, but due to different barcodes, SKU's, old software, that sort of thing... in practice it doesn't really work. It's a YMMV situation). The machines also only really give you a 'deposit ticket', which you can either use to fund your groceries, or (theoretically) return to get cash. So there's a lot of friction in the system between depositing a bottle and getting an actual deposit back.
As for why Swedish homeless don't tear open bags.... maybe you just have nicer homeless people than we do.
Right now in the Netherlands, around 95 percent of large (1-2 liter bottles) are returned, but only around 65 percent of the cans.
Why is this needed when there is kurb side recycling in the UK?
Recycling is bullshit, we should be re-using glass with a deposit system. Like much of Europe.
The separate the actually recyclable plastic from the rest of the "recyclable plastic"
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A UK deposit return scheme for recycling drinks bottles has been delayed to 2027, meaning it will not be in place until almost a decade after it was proposed.
He said the delay was because additional time was needed to synchronise the policy of the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales with that in England.
The scheme is intended to cut litter on land and sea by paying consumers a small cash sum to return their bottles and cans.
Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, said: “We’ve gone through four prime ministers since the Conservative government first promised a deposit return scheme for recycling bottles.
The Conservatives simply don’t care that plastic bottles end up littering our streets, parks, rivers and seas.
Labour will work across Britain and with business to bring in a deposit return scheme that will stop this waste and clean up our environment.”
The original article contains 555 words, the summary contains 149 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
He said the delay was because additional time was needed to synchronise the policy of the devolved administrations in >Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales with that in England.
What a load of old fish parts.
Have Neoliberals done anything that isn't a huge disappointment?