Bottle deposits

“I live in Germany and there's a deposit system here that works very well. But there are some bottles that get thrown away by youths but these are picked up by people who we call "bottle ghosts". Think about it for a moment, a loaf of bread costs around €0,75 and a deposit bottle or can has €0,25 deposit on it here so even if the poorest of people pick up a couple of cans they still have something to eat. I've trained my dog to retrieve cans out of the bushes and then i buy the dogs snacks with what she finds. I was in Plymouth this year and was shocked over the state the city is in ,rubbish everywhere. It's clear that people have given up and leave their rubbish lying around hoping the flood will wash it away.......very sad. Like i said, youths throw bottles away because mummy & daddy have paid for their drinks so they have no idea what it all sums up to and don't care if the deposit gets claimed or not. But it all sums up to if you have to pay deposit for a crate of Cola which has a deposit of €2,50 for the crate and 9x€0,25 for the bottles. With deposits like this i'm sure Plymouth and the rest of the country would be alot cleaner in no time.”

“Unfortunately in this day and age with kids the way they are i doubt it would work the same as it did in the 70's/80's all it would do is feed the alcoholics/druggies that already litter the streets in plymouth. On an up note it might stop the alcaholics from stealing from shops...... NAHH

Kids cant be bothered to walk the 2m from the park bench to the bin when they hang around the local park at night drinking so i doubt they would want to carry the empty cans/bottles home and then to a supermarket”

“I remember corona bottles too, my gran used to save them for me, and I bought sweets with the money. ( I'll probably end up diabetic because of that)”

“I prefer Sol to Corona.”

“@ trudie2010 Right on..... I remember collecting Corona bottles”

“I just think this country is moving backwards, but without any of the benefits of the old days.”

“I always did this as a child and many bottles were supplied so as to permit re-filling - how can we have allowed the situation we now find ourselves in to have ever happened, when such a simple solution has existed all the time?

It seems that most European countries are well ahead of us in this game.

Perhaps business does not see this as being such a profitable solution. Just think what a bonus it would be for the recycling industry and those to be employed by it!”

“It used to be like that when we had proper glass bottles, I can't think of any reason why they can't bring back this very productive system.”