With “Achtung Einsatz!” one of the largest circular economy projects in the country is taking hold in Austria: returnable vacuum with security deposit for plastic bottles and metal cans.
With Austria, there are now 17 European countries that have a system in place Security Deposit (or DRS, Deposit Return Scheme).
Therefore, on January 1st, the new regulation for bottles of plastic and cans of metal, with the aim of keeping high-quality beverage packaging materials in circulation and minimizing the dispersion of bottles and cans into nature.
With the new deposit system, around 2.2 billion bottles and cans will be recycled every year and a return rate of 90% must be achieved by 2027.
What are security deposit systems
This is a selective collection system with which the consumer pays a small deposit in addition to the ordinary selling price of a drink. The bail, or – precisely – depositis then paid in full to the consumer when the empty packaging is returned. In essence, the consumer he buys the contents and borrows the packaging.
Typically, DRS include:
The European Agreement on Packaging provides in Article 44 the mandatory introduction of a security deposit system (DRS Deposit return system) for countries like Italy which are unlikely to reach 90% interception for plastic and metal beverage containers.
What will happen in Austria
From 2 January, new plastic or can containers (from 0.1 to 3 litres) with the warehouse logo were placed on the market, which applies to all types of drinks, except those derived from milk, The syrups, and drinks considered medical.
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Furthermore, the containers must be equipped, in addition to the warehouse symbol, with a Easily readable barcode come on reverse vending machine (RVM), in the case of automated collection, and from the scanners of the points of sale where manual collection is carried out (at establishments that market drinks).
I approximately 5,600 return points that have registered with the central operator of the RPA system are already equipped with RVMs for automated collection or the equipment required for manual collection.