The Circular Returnable Cup

Deposit return schemes are when people get a small financial reward for returning drinks cans and bottles, instead of littering or throwing them away. Or even recycling them at kerbside.

In Europe, they are the norm. Yet still there are delays in the UK (and the English government is stalling things, due to not wanting glass to be included – despite it being included elsewhere in Europe.

This is a great way to reduce litter (some people can even make a fair bit of cash to earn or donate, by collecting littered bottles and cans). Just two years after Latvia introduced its scheme, littered containers on the Baltic coastline halved. Volunteers reported finding no drinks containers in rivers.

How do deposit return schemes work?

People simply return used drinks containers to reverse vending machines, which issue a small refund. In Finland, the average person earns around £40 a year from returning containers – enough to help pay for a daily coffee habit (biggest on earth – four cups a day!)

Some community groups collect discarded bottles and cans to raise money for local projects.

How to recycle cans to help wildlife

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To avoid wildlife investigating open cans at landfills or recycling sites, recycle them in the proper way:

• Rinse out (to avoid tempting smells).
• Remove lids and pop inside (or pop ring-pulls over holes).
• Step on upper cans to pinch rims together, so wildlife can’t get inside.

Research by Keep Britain Tidy found that 80% of littered bottles and nearly 5% of littered cans contained remains of small mammals such as shrews, bank voles and wood mice.

Returnable cup schemes

These let customers borrow cups and return them to wash and reuse. They are the best alternative for now, until deposit return scheme become law.

• Billie Cups (used across continental Europe) can be used hundreds of times before recycling. They are sold in five sizes, with reusable lids. At cashless venues, customers can use return tokens, made from recycled fishing waste.
• Borrow by Huskee uses reusable cups made from recycled coffee husks. Customers borrow a cup, then use the app to find a return point within 14 days. There is no charge unless cups are returned late (then a small fee applies). Some locations have return bins, and regular users get free coffee!
• Brummie Cup (created by an environmental group) lends up to 2000 reusable cups for community events. Then cups are washed and returned. These have no lids, so care is needed for hot drinks. 

Why are DRS schemes delayed?

The reason is due to the English government not wanting glass included, whereas Wales and Scotland too. Finland however has recycled glass in its schemes for decades. Not including glass misses an opportunity to reduce litter and improve recycling.

Greenpeace has criticised this decision, saying that all drinks containers should be included.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

This is when companies producing packaging have to pay towards the cost of its recycling or disposal. At present, a fast food joint creates lots of litter, then it’s your council tax used to clear it up.

EPR encourages firms to make compostable packaging, once they have to pay towards its removal. This is not just for cans/glass but also for clothing, batteries and electrical equipment.

For example, you can now take back any batteries or electrical equipment to stores that sell them. And they have to by law recycle it for you, at no cost (even if you don’t buy anything).

Some business groups say that EPR increases costs, which are then passed onto to consumers. But of course consumers are already paying via council tax to clean up their litter. And with EPR they have the choice to not buy from companies that ltiter.

Many supermarkets have trialled ‘refill stations’ say for dry foods. Then cancelled them due to ‘low customer demand’. If they had to pay EPR costs, likely they would have stayed.

Cupffee (the world’s first edible coffee cup)

Cupffee is as tasty as a cookie! It’s still resistant to hot temperatures and doesn’t leak, and won’t change the taste of your takeaway cup of tea or coffee.

Made from seven (vegan) ingredients (including oat bran, wheat flour and coconut oil), the small size is good for espresso, the large one for other coffee drinks. The paper label can also be branded for coffee shops.

Inspiration from German’s Pfand system

Deposit return schemes exist across Europe, we are lagging so far behind in England. One of the best-run examples is German’s Pfand (German for ‘deposit’) system:

In Germany, when people buy a drink in a single-use plastic bottle or drinks can, they pay a deposit of around 20p. Then they just return it when empty to a reverse vending machine (in most large supermarkets). The machine identifies the container and then produces a refund voucher that can be redeemed at the retailer (does not have to be the same one they bought the drink from).

If someone doesn’t return the container, he or she does not receive the deposit back (this is known in German as a ‘Pfandschlupf’.

When you look at the evidence, around 98% of Germany’s drinks containers are returned, with a result that their land is around five times less littered than England, where it’s the norm to find littered bottles and cans everywhere.

What is also known is that the most deprived areas of England have the most littered drinks. Why is this?  Surveys say it can be simply due to not being as proud of the area they live in, it can be due to peer pressure among youngsters, and sometimes due to lack of bins, so they don’t bother to take containers home.

Councils often don’t clean up areas as well (think of parks and rivers clogged with years of litter). So local residents think it won’t make much difference if they just add to the litter pile (even though it’s illegal and in theory they could be fined).

Plus deprived areas tend to sell more disposable single-use goods. For example if you live on a deprived estate, you likely are not going to find a deli offering you a lentil salad in a reusable bowl on a deposit return basis. But you will find a convenience store selling plastic bottles of fizzy pop, and energy drinks and cheap beer in cans.