• pinknoise@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    In germany we have glass bottles that are reused, you pay a per bottle deposit (0,08€, non-reusable is 0,25€) and get it back when you bring the bottle back to the market. The market will send the bottle back to the company it came from and they will clean it and reuse it for bottling again if it’s still good.

    There is also reuse for plastic bottles, but it is less common, at least everywhere I lived. (reuse is done regionally) Also they can’t be reused as often as glass bottles. One could reuse metal containers, but that isn’t done. I’d guess because they aren’t transparent and so cannot be inspected by bottling systems as easily.

    Soft-drinks usually aren’t reusable, because they aren’t distributed locally.

    • Hamster@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      How eco-friendy the refilling of glass bottles is, depends on the distance they have to be transported. Utopia has a (German) article about it.

    • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      But then you could make like 5-10 plastic bottles per glass bottle, as far as the entire recycling and production cost goes.

      • pinknoise@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        Yeah probably, they need less energy to produce. But you need to mix in some fresh material for recycling and they are way worse than all alternatives when not recycled. Ideally everyone would just use their own reusable containers, I guess.