![]() ![]() The government has entrusted this function to the private sector. ![]() On average, every Finn returns 373 items in a year: 251 aluminum cans, 98 plastic bottles and 24 glass bottles. Return rates in 2020 totalled 94 percent for aluminium cans (out of 1.4 billion sold), 92 percent for plastic bottles (out of 530 million) and 87 percent for glass bottles (out of 133 million). Photo: Erkki Laitila/LehtikuvaĪcross Finland, cans are returned at an average rate of 44 per second, plastic bottles at 17 per second, and glass bottles at four per second. In 1969, this discount store in the southern Finnish city of Kouvola advertised a return payment of two pennies per beer bottle. Palpa processes 360 million euros a year in bottle deposit money. ![]() When you present the receipt to the store’s cashier, they give you cash back or deduct the bottle-return money from your purchase. The returned containers are recycled or the materials are reused. Plastic bottles are worth 20 to 40 cents, depending on their size, while glass bottles are worth 10 to 40 cents and aluminium cans are 15 cents. When you’re done, you press a button and the machine gives you a receipt. The machine sorts the bottles and crushes the cans. They carry it past a scanner and out of sight. You place a bottle or can on a set of miniature conveyor belts at the front of the machine. The system covers alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and bottled water, in aluminium cans, glass bottles and bottles made from PET plastic. Hotels, restaurants, offices, schools and event organisers return containers through their beverage providers.Įvery time a person buys a beverage in a bottle or can, they pay a deposit of 15 to 40 cents. Most of them are located in the same shops and kiosks that sell beverages, making returning them a convenient part of people’s routine. Nowadays there are almost 5,000 container-return machines across Finland. The first bottle recycling programmes began back in the 1950s. These guys have collected abandoned bottles and cans and are going to return them to get the deposit money. (The stats come from the website of Palpa, the nonprofit company that runs Finland’s bottle and can recycling operations.) How it works Manufacturing new cans from recycled aluminium requires only 5 percent of the energy that would be used to make cans from scratch, and making new glass from recycled glass consumes 30 percent less energy than manufacturing glass from scratch. Beverage containers become part of the circular economy as their materials are recycled into new containers or reused in other products. Recycling bottles and cans conserves energy and raw materials, and reduces litter in cities and wilderness areas. ![]() Since Finland handily surpassed that mark years ago, its system is attracting notice as a possible solution for use in other countries. Approved by an overwhelming majority of the European Parliament in 2019, the directive stipulates that, by 2029, 90 percent of plastic beverage bottles should be recycled. The EU directive on single-use plastics has focused additional attention on bottle recycling and sustainability. The factors that make this possible include automated bottle-return machines developed decades ago and the expansion of the system to include plastic bottles in the 2000s. Convenience is the cornerstone of the system’s success.įinnish residents returned more than two billion bottles and cans in 2020, 93 percent of the total amount purchased in the country. Finland’s system for returning beverage containers started in the 1950s, and today almost every bottle and can is recycled. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |