Plastic bottles

Local authorities collect plastic bottles in recycling bins, so if they then return them will we get a reduction in our council tax

I think this is a laudable idea but I can’t see it working. Not in this country anyway. It relies on a certain disciplined approach by the people who buy the drinks, and frankly, I don’t think that people who buy cans or bottles of drink from supermarkets to ‘drink on the hoof’ and then throw their empties into the nearest verge or hedgerow, or out of the car window, on their way home are suddenly going to start saving them to get the deposit back. It may be a jaundiced view, and I am happy to be proved wrong.

I can't see how this will work, unless it forces manufacturers to rethink packaging.

I cant really see the council reducing council tax when they are desperate for every penny.

What was a surprise to me is that money does come back into the community through collection companies like Biffa who have to 'give back' to the community a proportion of profits made from recycling through awarding grants to local groups. For example locally over several years various community groups and clubs have received such grants here. the most recent is one of £46, 000 to a local cricket and martial arts club for refurbishing a collapsing pavilion and clubhouse. The grant application is strenuous and must be assiduously administered by nevertheless its recycled money.

I've seen how these deposit schemes work in other countries and it isn't as bad you think it might be. Any plastic bottles thrown away in public will be picked up by someone who is happy to collect them for money and return them.
When the plastic bag charge was introduced, Ocado started to refund on bags returned for recycling, even if they were not Ocado branded bags. I imagine they'll do exactly the same for bottles. Supermarkets may do the same thing too.
Manufacturers will absolutely develop better packaging, I think, as it will make their products more profitable and they can sell them more cheaply.
There's other things happening too, like water fountains being provided in public areas, so people won't need to buy as many bottles of water as they do at the moment.
I think it's a really good idea and we can't just keep polluting the planet. It can be difficult to change at first, but we get there in the end and then it all seems very normal.

The knock-on effect on the behaviour of manufacturers is likely to be slow - but you have to start somewhere.

"Any plastic bottles thrown away in public will be picked up by someone who is happy to collect them for money and return them."

Those were my thoughts too, Primrose.

Back in the days when there was a refund on glass pop bottles that were returned to the shop, my enterprising elder brother made himself extra pocket money by collecting and returning discarded ones. Mind you, he did go too far when he discovered that the supermarket then put these empties straight out at the back of the shop, just ready to be picked up by him and 'returned' many times over. At least the modern system would prevent that

DH and I spent three hours last Saturday helping at a clear up along a riverpath. We didn't bother to count the cigarette butts we picked up using pickers outside a block of flats. About 30 bags of cans, plastic and glass bottles were collected as well as 32 shopping trollies, please read this article

www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/divers-find-haul-of-rubbish-in-ipswich-river-1-5452781

If this bottle recycling scheme works then it must do some good for our planet.

I’ve used the system in recent years in Denmark and Germany. The machines delivered a voucher that you used against your bill but some ( I think it was Denmark) gave you the option to donate your refund to charity. I see the problem for people who have online shopping delivered but there must be a solution to this. <goes away to think>

Yes Mama Caz My DGC are already planning to make their fortune collecting thrown away bottles and cans and some of the Charities and schools, who used to collect paper but gave up when the price dropped drastically, are looking at starting up schemes. I expect the too cool to pick up brigade will continue to throw their cans, bottles and take away cartons away (mainly into our front garden) but there will be an incentive for decent people and a money making opportunity for recyclers.

www.scotsman.com/news/nicola-sturgeon-announces-can-and-bottle-deposit-return-scheme-1-4551671.

I think it's brilliant that they have at last brought in a scheme which is years overdue. Anything which helps to clean the world up a bit is good, surely. It works perfectly in Germany (where I have spent a lot of time). I can't see any reason why it shouldn't work here.

chocolatepudding I used to join Friends of our local woods litter picking at the weekend and it was fairly light until we got to the path that bordered the local school, where you would be knee deep in cans, plastic bottles, sweet wrappers and crisp packets. The school didn’t care where the kids put their rubbish as long as it was outside the school grounds. I would like to think you could re-educate people not to discard their crap, or to recycle it, but sadly I think we have passed the point of no return. I’ve lived in three European countries and never saw littering on the scale we see it here. It needs people to take a different attitude to their local environment. If the recycling scheme works I will be the first to applaud it.

If you get shopping delivered surely the delivery driver could pick up the empties and the deposit credited to your account? Its a great idea, they have something similar in Austria and we always took our empties back to the supermarket.

But 22p is surely excessive.
The kids who go round collecting will be very well off.
My only plastic bottles are milk, washing up liquid, washing clothes liquid and the occasional squash bottle,perhaps 2 a year. Off the top of my head I can't think of any others.
I am hardly likely to leave my house to throw those in a hedge bottom.

I think it's a good idea that is long overdue but 22p is an odd amount (especially if bronze coins do get phased out). Why not 20p?

I'll be delighted to make some money from the bottles tossed into my roadside field along a boundary of some 150yds. Pity I won't get anything back on KFC and McDonalds boxes...

Tesco delivery people will take away any plastic carrier bags for recycling. I am sure that something could be organised with plastic bottles. They have their little electronic gizmos that refund you the money on substitutes on your order that you do not want - I am sure that something similar could be done with plastic bottles. Where there's a gizmo, there's a way!

Good idea, but the potential method shown (as currently used in Norway) seems too last century to succeed here.

The majority of those consuming cans of coke and bottled water in the street are the millennial. They hate cash, preferring contactless payments. I doubt they will trot to the till clutching a paper coupon worth around 20p to redeem against next purchase. I'm in my sixties, and even I hate having to fumble at the till to hand over all the relevant coupons. I bet some of the bits of paper will end up as litter, and the law of unintended consequences will strike again!

However, if the refund was credited to their phone, it could be a winner.

I don't mind 22p. 20p might be more practical though.

I have another thought. I have been asking my chemist to supply pills not in packets ( not recyclable anyway) but loose in pots.... I have a big problem with my right hand and small pills in a tight packet.
Now, I try every time to get them loose, but when I do, I get a small unreusable plastic bottle.

Chemist used to recycle their bottles too! Yes, I can put them in the recycling, but couldn't they be reused?

I use sparkling flavoured water a lot and probably have half a dozen small bottles a week I ve no problem paying a bit on top and giving the bottles back and getting my deposit back that makes sense I think it’s a good idea but agree 20p is better 22p is daft

The system has been working in Germany for some time, as others have said, but I recently heard talk of it being scrapped.

There has always been a system of deposits on glass bottles, and for many years cans were forbidden altogether, but now you can just put your bottles through a machine and print out the slip: large jars of yoghurt, fizzy drink cans, plastic and glass bottles, crates of bottles, .... all go through the same machine. Glass bottles go one way, PET bottles go another way and are crushed.

You see people (not just middle class types) with huge binbags full of plastic bottles standing at the machines posting them in. At 15c or 25c a go, it all adds up.

if they are delivered to yu, then it is simple no?

DD1 was visiting recently. She told me about making ecobricks by filling plastic bottles with non-biological waste (e.g. non-stretchy polythene, the plastic bubbles that pills come in, sweety wrappers, etc). These are then used as building blocks. So if you drink stuff that comes in plastic bottles (DD says 2 litre ones are best but if you plan to use them for your own projects, you can use whatever size you like), get cracking! ?

PS It's AMAZING how much you can fit in. Keep ramming it down!

Building blocks to build what? I can’t think I’d like a wall mad3 is stuffed plastic bottles.