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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday February 07 2018, @04:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the an-ATM-in-reverse dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07 2018, @07:30PM (#634511)

    Yeah i only took those cans and bottles there couple of times, cause it was a little bit out of the way, so i didn't want to drive there too much. But the sites i've been to, you could probably make 50-200 USD a week just collecting the cans and bottles and if you were smart, just ask people to put them in a different container and you wouldn't have to dumpster dive. Easy money!

    As i have always taken the cans and bottles back to shops, it just horrifies and saddens me that places like California it's seems so impossible and how much plastic and aluminium is just taken to dumps and thrown to ocean just because there are no collection machines around.