According to the Ministry of the Environment, around 1.8 billion PET bottles and 0.8 billion cans are sold in the country every year. A significant amount of this packaging ends up outside the sorted waste stream, approximately one in five PET bottles. The situation is even worse with cans, with three out of four cans not getting sorted.
Environment Minister Petr Hladík says steps must be taken to increase the recycling rate and reduce the amount of waste that ends in Nature.
The take-back obligation should apply to all shops and petrol stations with an area of more than 50 m². Online retailers will also have to accept returnable. Small shops, kiosks, and municipalities will be encouraged to join the system on a voluntary basis. The main reason why we are introducing this is that we don’t want thousands of used cans strewn on the street and in ditches along the road.”
The organisation and functioning of the deposit-refund system will be ensured by an operator: an entity established by manufacturers that supply more than 80% of disposable drink containers to the market. The operator will oversee the setting up of the entire system, its administration, coordination, and financing.
Photo: ČT24
In small municipalities where there will be neither mandatory nor voluntary collection points, the system operator will have to set them up.
Sorting of drink containers separately from other plastic or metal waste should ensure a supply of input materials for recycling companies, and the packaging should thus return to the market as reusable recycled material.
The deposit-refund system is not new to Czechs. There is a 3-crown deposit on glass beer bottles and the system works well, but with plastic bottles and cans the scope will be much bigger.
Details of the plan are now being thrashed out in an inter-ministerial comment procedure where officials have tabled over 700 comments.
Photo: YouTube
Critics argue that the introduction of a mandatory deposit system will increase costs and complicate the existing waste sorting system. They say Czechs should merely be encouraged to sort more cans and plastic bottles. Others point out that many salespeople will lack the space needed to collect empties in view of the fact that cans and bottles must not be crushed.
Details of the proposed amendment to the Packinging Act are still to be debated in Parliament.
The Environment Ministry says it is open to constructive arguments and there are many examples that can be emulated. The deposit-refund system has been introduced in 16 European countries and is about to be launched in Austria and Poland.