Denmark has one of the world’s highest rates of packaging recycling, but the Scandinavian country’s government is still not satisfied with the 90% already achieved. To narrow the gap to 100% as much as possible, it plans to extend the deposit on single-trip bottles made of plastic, glass and metal from 1 January 2020. The need for juice bottles to be added to the deposit scheme and also recycled has grown as sales of the product have increased in Danish retail outlets, Minister for Food and the Environment Jakob Ellemann-Jensen said in announcing the plans.

Expanding the deposit system – one of several moves planned across the country to get a grip on the plastics waste problem – is expected to lead to an additional 52m bottles being recycled annually and increase the volume of recyclable packaging in the deposit system by 4-5%, the minister said. At present, around 1.2 bn bottles and cans are collected in Denmark. Glass bottles and cans holding a volume of less than 1l of liquid carry a deposit of DKK 1 (EUR 0.13), plastic bottles holding up to 1l a deposit of DKK 1.5 and packaging of 1-20l a deposit of DKK 3.

Danish non-profit waste collecting company Dansk Retursystem (Hedehusene; www.danskretursystem.dk) has started a campaign to collect the remaining 10% (140m units annually) of drink packaging not yet being recycled. This would translate into annual raw materials savings of 10,200 t and 14,300 t of CO₂, according to the calculation. On 22 August, the company began a national deposit game called “Det nationale Pantspil” (pant is the Danish word for deposit), which allows players to win prizes simply by returning their deposit-bearing bottles.” Even if all players can’t win a prize, it is still a win-win situation for the environment, says Lars Krejberg Petersen, general manager of Dansk Retursystem. “Every action counts.”

As well as with environmental advocates at home, Denmark’s actions have struck a chord in Germany. Environmental pressure group Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH, Berlin; www.duh.de) called on the federal government to widen its own deposit system to include juice and fruit concentrate bottles. This could add 1 bn plastic bottles to the currently available recycling volumes, the organisation estimates. Advances in recycling technology now permit PET bottles coated with polyamide to be processed, DUH added. For beverage bottles and cartons, the environmental group would like to see a deposit of EUR 0.25.