Should Guernsey have a deposit system for bottles and cans?

September 12th, 2010 by Rosie

http://www.zerowasteeurope.eu/ is worth bookmarking.

Now that Guernsey is working towards a strategy based on minimising our waste out-put, this website will help us to keep abreast of what is going on in Europe, and what ideas could we apply to Guernsey.

The article ‘Beverage Packaging and Zero Waste‘ talks about the benefits of a deposit system for bottles and cans….. This is the kind of initiative that I have long believed Guernsey should adopt (like it did many years ago). Not only would our capture of these containers suddenly rocket, but we would also eliminate one of our main sources of littering in a stroke.

In the Netherlands supermarkets pay their customers 25 Euro cents for each large PET plastic bottle returned to them.  Tomra produces machines that allow supermarkets to issue receipts to customers who place PET plastic bottles and cases of empty beer bottles through the machine.