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olejorgenb 18 hours ago

Collection rates in countries having an reverse-vending system is also high to very-high. 80-95% IIRC

unwind 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Deposits on cans and PET bottles is well-established in Sweden, and rates seem to be around 90% now according to the responsible company [1], so yes.

[1]: https://pantamera.nu/en/private-citizen/facts--statistics/de...

JoshTriplett 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Inconvenience is also very high, compared to "throw it in a recycling bin".

rob74 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The inconvenience of throwing it in a recycling bin vs. just throwing it out of the window is also higher, so the next logical step is, I assume, to simply throw it out of the window?

throwaway03312 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Several countries add a deposit to each bottle, so you would actually throw money away. It's not a big inconvenience to throw the bottles in a small bag and bring it with you to the machine at the grocery store, when you are going there anyway. 9 of 10 bottles are returned in Norway, so the system works.

JoshTriplett 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's not a big inconvenience to throw the bottles in a small bag and bring it with you to the machine at the grocery store, when you are going there anyway.

1) "when you are going there anyway", which many people don't anymore.

2) Yes, it's absolutely a big inconvenience; I remember those days, and it took 15-30 minutes each time, leaving aside the inconvenience of bagging and lugging them, and the extreme unreliability of the machines. Not going to happen.

A recycling bin that gets picked up alongside the trash bin is far, far more convenient. I live in a state that has a can/bottle deposit, and despite that I just toss them in the recycling bin. If there wasn't a recycling bin or the recycling bin didn't allow them, they'd go in the trash bin, because life is too short to spend any of it feeding plastic bottles into a machine.

My state also incentivizes recycling in other ways: trash bins are small with high fees, recycling bins are huge and free.

Ekaros 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Or huge sack and then use the newer models of machines that will automatically process whole sack of mixed pet and cans in a couple minutes.