r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	TheRealDanSch
Comment	Not sure which side of the discussion your point falls, but I have. I lived in Germany. We bought beer and soft drinks by the crate, and then we took them back to the "Getränkmarkt" to get out deposit back (or, more likely, to put it towards more beer). People always seem to argue that they can't take bottles back, as if returning empty ones is so much more difficult than taking full ones away. I was there when shops gave "Pfand" (deposit) tokens for their specific shop with bottles so that you had to return bottle and token for a refund, but more recently they have automated machines that scan the barcode and give you a voucher for the amount. It effectively puts a value on specific types of rubbish - if you're rich enough to not care about the deposit and enough of an arsehole to litter, hopefully you're funding the poor person who picks it up and cashes it in (much like picking up ginger bottles from building sites as a child in 80s/90s Scotland). I can also recall seeing guys at airports abroad lifting empties from bins to get the deposit back. Sadly, though, this only helps with certain types of litter. There's a Converse shoe box on a motorway slip near me, with no shops in the vicinity - i can't fathom how it got there, other than by accepting that a lot of people are just filthy, selfish swine.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/11kybas/why_glasgow_is_such_a_dump/jba3sdb/
Created	Tue 7th Mar 2023 3:52pm
Status	normal ()

Not sure which side of the discussion your point falls, but I have. I lived in Germany. We bought beer and soft drinks by the crate, and then we took them back to the "Getränkmarkt" to get out deposit back (or, more likely, to put it towards more beer).

People always seem to argue that they can't take bottles back, as if returning empty ones is so much more difficult than taking full ones away.

I was there when shops gave "Pfand" (deposit) tokens for their specific shop with bottles so that you had to return bottle and token for a refund, but more recently they have automated machines that scan the barcode and give you a voucher for the amount.

It effectively puts a value on specific types of rubbish - if you're rich enough to not care about the deposit and enough of an arsehole to litter, hopefully you're funding the poor person who picks it up and cashes it in (much like picking up ginger bottles from building sites as a child in 80s/90s Scotland). I can also recall seeing guys at airports abroad lifting empties from bins to get the deposit back.

Sadly, though, this only helps with certain types of litter. There's a Converse shoe box on a motorway slip near me, with no shops in the vicinity - i can't fathom how it got there, other than by accepting that a lot of people are just filthy, selfish swine.