So I have to walk back and forth between the co-op twice just to get a deposit back on a can of coke? Fuck that
and what about people who already recycle at home?
Good, I'm surprised the UK didn't have this already.
oh woe is you
Also, it's not exactly a good side effect but homeless people can get a couple of quid from doing this.
Here this is so ingrained in our society that I have never thought of that some countries didn't do this. Like the thought of throwing bottles or cans directly in the trash is odd to me. There are literally people whos "job" it is to go around the city rummaging through the trash to find bottles and cans that were thrown out so they can return them to stores.
This has been the norm here all my life. It's almost a little savings account to have a bag of empty bottles that you can turn in for some days worth of food at the end of the month.
We do a bottle deposit in my province. I've seen a fair amount of people who don't like it because the costs can sneak up on them. For example, a 24 pack of water could be selling for $3, and then there's a $2.40 deposit on the case as well as a $0.40 recycling fee roughly. The deposits themselves are based off the size of the bottle, and they only apply to "disposable" containers i.e. juice boxes or Dasani bottles. Reusable containers such as Thermos cans and Nalgene bottles don't have a deposit on them.
You bring them to an awful smelling depot where they collect and count your bottles, then they give you cash. Every time I went there it was steadily busy.
But it gives homeless people a potential, if unreliable source of income, and it does seem to push some people towards recycling their waste. I'm almost certain that if it weren't for the deposit, my family likely wouldn't recycle a single can.
All in all, I think it's a good thing.
Okay, maybe that was a kneejerk reaction. I think I saw the inconvenience of hypothetically spending more, rather than the potential good it can do. my bad.
I wonder if the money for deposits will be set aside from the usual float money in the till used for change, and if there'll be a version for card transactions
It's all factored in to your purchase, pricing might go up by like 60p for a six pack or something & when you take it to a return booth you get a little receipt of paper you can either re-use at the store or get cash (I think).
Stores front all the money management, consumer literally has to do nothing.
Is it the Second Coming?
I'm pretty glad about this scheme - it makes a great deal of sense to me. I just hope the deposit costs are not *too* high.
As someone regrettably addicted to caffienated soft drinks, or as we in the UK call them fizzy-busy clinky drinkies, I'm not sure if this is good or bad for me. Good for the environment, sure but still I'd like to know.
given how pervasive britain's anti homeless architecture is, they'll probably start putting one way spike strips on trash cans and recycling bins now just to try to stop that.
In Michigan we pay 10c per can/bottle and it's really great. Our recycle rate for cans/bottles are upwards of %90+.
92% in 2016.
BottleBill.org
though our normal recycle rate is like 15%.
With the uk and I think it was Australia recently having a similar story I wonder how many more countries do not recycle.
The NSW government here in Australia recently implemented a container return scheme similar to what some of the other states already have. The idea is that you take your empty bottles to the deposit places and get back 10c per can or bottle.
But the problem is that supermarkets everywhere have increased their prices by at least 11c, sometimes even 15c per item, so the customer is worse off than before, even if they return absolutely everything. And there are anecdotes that the line-ups at some of the deposit places are long, because there are people feeding in hundreds of items but one at a time. Even more concerning is that there are other anecdotes that strangers are going into other peoples’ backyards, violating their privacy, and raiding their recycling bins.
And that’s the thing; I already recycle all of my bottles, cans, tins, cardboard etc with kerbside recycling. As do many other people. Why should I go out of my way to recycle at these deposit places, when my recycling is already picked up once per fortnight?
Or when you go to the co-op the next day for another can of coke you deposit the empty one then, there's not a time limit.
And if you want to save money why the hell are you going to co-op? haha
You guys would have a heart attack if you visited here. Waste management is awfully unregulated, all you can do is throw everything into a can and see it all end up on a pile outside the city next to the highway. We could seriously use some stronger measures by now.
Well here in wales (and I assume rest of the UK) we just have a few different recycle bins along side the regular waste bins rather than having a deposit scheme so its not like no recycling is done.
Seems this is to help push recycling even further now, seems the government is on a real anti-plastic kick now with this along side getting rid of plastic straws and cutlery.
Thats shitty that they raised prices with it's introduction. That is also weird that if you already have dedicated bins for plastic and metal cans I don't see why you would need these recycling stations at all.
Glad they're doing this, I really liked Germany's way of doing this with automated machines in most stores.
Have a plastic bag where you throw cans/bottles in, when it's near full just bring it along next time you're going shopping, not really hard.
I definitely think this is a great idea, not gonna change whether or not I have fizzy-busy clinky drinkies.
It's very common here in the Scandinavian countries. After you have three shopping bags full of various empty cans and bottles you can easily get $20-30 from that alone. I used to do it as a kid to get pocket money.
I seems like a good idea to me, I will probably just stock up bottles for a week or so and get rid of them all at once when I go shopping.
Even better, use that bag to put your shopping in after.
It's England only so far.
Also it's stupid because it penalises those who already recycle at home (like me) because they now have to drag their bottles back to the shops or they end up losing money not to mention we lack sufficient infrastructure for recycling waste as it is especially since China has banned importation of it.
Also what happens to unclaimed deposits, is it fed back to the council to improve recycling schemes or awareness or will retailers keep it or what?
The BBC article reeks of scaremongering too "The other warned that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - an artificial island of plastic material twice the size of France" It's not an island, and it's not a solid mass.
I suppose a lot of this depends on where exactly you live. If you have to drive to do your shopping then yeah this is going to be a pain in the ass, but over here our local co-op is literally 5 minutes down the road, so it's not that big of an inconvenience for us.
Huh, I thought PET recycling was standardized in Europe. The system they propose seems kinda overthought, then again, I'm used to everything marked with the recycling logo (which includes metal cans too as of recent) being a 25 cent deposit instead of judging by size. Most supermarket chains have machines accepting these bottles and you get a coupon you can use at the register to cash out, it's pretty convenient.
Seems like an enormous pain in the ass, especially as I already recycle at home, but if this is more advantageous than home recycling then I can't really complain.
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