Consumers to Pay Bottle Deposit in the UK
Marie Donlon | March 28, 2018
In a bid to fight pollution, Britain announced this week that it plans to charge consumers a deposit on single-use drink containers sold in England.
The deposit will be applied to drink containers made of plastic, glass and metal.
"It is absolutely vital we act now to tackle this threat and curb the millions of plastic bottles a day that go unrecycled," said environment minister Michael Gove.
"We want to take action on plastic bottles to help clean up our oceans," he added.
Hoping to duplicate the success of similar schemes in Denmark, Sweden and Germany, where consumers are refunded 22 pence (25 euro cents) for each empty bottle that is returned, Britain intends to explore how to make the deposit scheme work.
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Discussion – 3 comments
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It's a lot better to make recycling easier not forcing it with pecuniary penalties.
Having grown up Massachusetts where the bottle bill was passed in 1982, it is a monumental PIA to return garbage to the store or redemption centers. Single stream recycling is a much better approach to the 'problem'.
Growing up in New York in the late sixties and early seventies, I remember the popularity of the new & modern "No Deposit-No Return" bottles. Somewhere in the early seventies, New York introduced bottle and can deposits on single-serving beverage containers of soda and beer.
Prior to the enactment of the bottle deposit law, roadsides were strewn with cans, bottles, sometimes broken glass. Since requiring the deposit, I have personally witnessed the cleaning up of these roadsides. Some folks scour the land for deposit bottles, picking them up as found money. Others stockpile their bottles until they can be returned for refunds.
We can beg people to recycle until we choke the seas with plastic bottles, but I think tapping them on the wallet will be highly effective!
Here's hoping our beautiful United States can put the health of our world ahead of money and inconvenience, and will enact legislation following the lead of those forward-thinking, and no doubt cleaner, countries noted herein.
Scott R. O'Connor
Sharon Springs, New York, USA
In reply to #2
Yes, and I have seen where the homeless in the cities will dump out a garbage can onto the ground to collect up the 'nickels'. And you can be sure they put all the trash back into the garbage can when they were done.