Greenservations 2: Pfand Zurück

I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting another Greenservations post… and I’m sorry it has taken me this long to deliver!  This Greenservations post focuses on the policy of ‘Pfand Zurück’ which literally translates to ‘deposit back’.  Here in Germany, the Government has put in place container-deposit legislation which requires collection of a monetary deposit on soft-drink, juice, milk, water, alcoholic-beverage, and other containers at the point of sale. When the bottle or container is returned to an authorized redemption center, the deposit is refunded to the redeemer.  Deposits can range anywhere from € 0.08 for small plastic bottles to € 0.25 for large, reusable glass bottles.  Remember when I told you all about ‘Kastens’ of beer?  Well a Kasten is a plastic crate of twenty 0.50 liter glass bottles of beer.  An average Kasten of beer costs about 18 euros, and that’s INCLUDING a Pfand of anywhere from 4 to 6 euros! Yes, beer really IS that cheap here.  Unglaublich.

We have a similar policy in the United States, but it is not as widely used and accepted as the Pfand here in Germany.  In the US, we have what are called ‘Bottle Bills’ where in certain states where a bill has been passed, people can get back a deposit for their containers.  There are currently 11 states in the U.S. with container deposit legislation; California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont.  The deposit amount for bottles and containers in the States is no where near as high as in Germany, which might be why not as many people take advantage of it.  The only people you ever see returning cans are the kind, shopping cart pushing bums who clean up the streets of Clifton after a raucous weekend of partying.  The deposits in the states are only 5¢ to 15¢, far less than in Germany when you take the exchange rate into account.  People always see it on their cans, “this can has a 5¢ cash value” or something like that, but they don’t care, or don’t know how to take advantage of the deposit legislation. 

I see many great benefits to Pfand or container deposit legislation.  For one, it truly encourages recycling and serves as a good complement to curbside recycling programs.  Most noticeably in Germany, Pfand reduces beverage container litter along streets, in lakes and rivers, and on other public or private properties.  That is one thing I have noticed about Germany, no where NEAR as much litter as in the US.  Along with that point, places with container deposit legislation in place are less likely to have broken glass on the roads and sidewalks.  It is unarguable that people are going to be less likely to litter when there is monetary incentive to return bottles and containers to appropriate places.  I wonder if deposit legislation will ever become as widely accepted in the US as it is here in Germany…  What do you guys think?