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UK 'could adopt Norway recycling system'
A Scandinavian system for recycling bottles is thought likely to be adopted in the UK. Advisers to government say the schemes have massively reduced plastic litter in the environment and seas. And a ministerial delegation has been to Norway to see if the UK should copy an industry-led scheme that recycles 98% of bottles. In the UK, figures show that only around half of all plastic bottles get recycled.
Norway claims to offer the most cost-efficient way of tackling plastic litter. The Norwegian government decided the best method would be to put a tax on every bottle that's not recycled - then leave the operating details of the scheme up to business.
It works like this: the consumer pays a deposit on every bottle, from 10p to 25p depending on size. They return it empty and post it into a machine which reads the barcode and produces a coupon for the deposit. If the careless consumer has left liquid in the bottle, the machine eats it anyway - but hands the deposit to the shopkeeper who'll need to empty the bottle.
Similar schemes are in operation in other Nordic nations, Germany, and some states in the US and Canada.
(Score: 4, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:22PM (6 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:10PM
In Michigan there was a similar change. It cleaned up a lot of paper trash too. There was enormous opposition initially to deposits on cans and bottles, people screamed "communism", "socialism", and other misguided epithets. I saw almost a fist fight over it in Ohio. between middle aged people. Before the Bottle Bill [bottlebill.org] took effect, the roads we lined with all kinds of trash. There was all kinds of paper trash, too, especially once fast food became part of the culture. Obviously there were plenty of bottles and cans. These were the tough cans, too, not the squishy kind there are now. When you needed targets for plinking, every week there were already fresh cans and bottles. It was just a matter of walking a stretch of road and collecting for 10 minutes.
That changed rapidly once there was a sizable deposit on both cans and bottles. The surprising thing was that the paper trash also almost entirely disappeared from the roadsides, at least in comparison to how they had been before. At events it changed quickly, too. For a few months, some clever people figured out that they could volunteer to clean arenas and such. People were still in the habit of dropping their used containers on the floor. Teams filled up many large trashbags at each event. At the beginning it was very big money at big events, but once word got out, that tapered off to nothing quickly. Within a year there were basically no containers left behind at any even large or small. However, that was way back when it was actually allowed to bring your own refreshements.
It worked well and if I had my way, there'd be similar deposits on cigarette filters.
tldr: people started cleaning up their own trash, not just the stuff with deposits
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:59AM (3 children)
I saw an article on Finland having the best bottle recycling rates in the world - 98%, I think it was. There's no such thing as bottle/can litter in the parks; on big feast days (vappu, midsummer, open air concerts), there will literally be swarms of people ready to snarf your container as soon as you put it down on the grass. It's been like that for many decades.
In Japan, there's no such thing as any litter in the parks, or anywhere else in public for that matter, and it's been this way for ages, long before recycling was a thing. All you need is a culture where people actually care about keeping things neat and tidy. I guess if you don't have that, you have to resort to monetary methods.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 08 2018, @09:05AM (2 children)
I remember coverage of F1 Grands Prix in both the US and Japan where in one of those places you could see the crowd picking up their litter and taking it home (or at least to the nearest bin) in little bags, and in the other location you could see fans "disposing" of their rubbish by throwing it over the fence onto the circuit area.
Wanna take a guess which was which ;-) ?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 08 2018, @03:24PM (1 child)
Wow, learn something new every day: I didn't even know they ever held the F1 Grand Prix in the USA. I just Googled it and sure enough, it's been held in Austin, TX for a little while now.
Honestly, I'm surprised Americans even watch it. I thought they only liked races where the cars had engines with carburetors and pushrods.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 08 2018, @04:01PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:24AM
I went to a university in China, and at a volleyball game, a lady was asking me to hand her empty water bottles through the fence. I asked her how much she made by recycling the bottles, and she said about 2 yuan per jin (pound). At that time, a decent lunch at the (Chinese) fast food place cost 4 yuan, so it wasn't an impossible way of making a living.