Germany has a strict policy on disposable containers that requires a deposit, or Pfand (cognate with the English word “pawn”) included in the price of the beverage. As conditions in the country have deteriorated, poorer people, especially pensioners, have become more and more dependent on income from collecting discarded containers to claim the Pfand for them.
Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Nius.de. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:
Poverty Pfand [Deposit] — one of the largest employers in Germany
- 1,030,000 people in Germany depend on collecting returnable bottles.
- If Pfand were an employer, it would be one of the largest in Germany.
- Pensioners in particular are increasingly at risk of poverty.
Around one million people in Germany rely on collecting deposits. 23% of them even describe the collection of returnable bottles and cans as their only source of income. “If Pfand were an employer, it would have 237,000 employees,” writes the initiative “Pfand belongs next to it” from the beverage manufacturer Fritz-Kola on its Instagram account.
More “employees” than Deutsche Bahn
This means that the bottle deposit in Germany has more employees than Deutsche Bahn and only slightly fewer than the Evangelical Church.
The reality in many cities: bottle collectors have been an integral part of the street scene for years. Above all, pensioners and recipients of citizen’s income improve their household budget by reaching into the garbage can. This is one of the reasons why initiatives such as “The deposit belongs next to it” are promoting not disposing of one’s own bottles in the rubbish bin, but putting them next to it. Goal: A little more respect for those who have no other choice.
It is a pragmatic way of dealing with the increasing poverty in the country. True to the motto: If you can’t change the situation, you can at least help those affected to gain a little more dignity.
The introduction of the bottle deposit in Germany was certainly not originally intended as a measure to combat poverty. Twenty years ago the red-green government introduced compulsory deposits for mineral water, beer and fizzy drinks. Depending on the size, between 8 and 25 cents per bottle and can were due. Two years later, with the Third Ordinance to Amend the Packaging Ordinance, the mandatory deposit that had been in effect since 2003 was extended to all one-way beverage containers.
Background: In 2002, the reusable rate was only 60%, but the statutory requirement was 72%. The introduction of the deposit should therefore increase the reusable rate again. Along with the nuclear phase-out, it was one of the most controversial government reforms of those years. [I would love to see the same thing happen here in South Africa, because then, maybe, the people wouldn’t litter so much. Not that a deposit for all bottles and jars will stop littering, but it would take some of the plastic and broken glass out of the “one-way” circulation.]
Symbol for increasing poverty in Germany
Today, the image of the bottle-collecting pensioner, like the queue in front of the Tafel [food bank], has become a symbol of a country in which there is now a wide gap between expectations and reality on many levels. 680,000 pensioners were dependent on basic security in the first quarter of 2023. Never that many before. At almost 48.15%, the German pension level is well below that of other European countries such as France, Spain and Italy. The Dutch are at the forefront. Their pension entitlement corresponds to 89.2% of the last net salary.
Afterword from the translator:
And then there are about 600,000 “refugees” that have successfully claimed asylum, and which are now allowed and perfectly capable of working for a living, receiving the full “citizens’ income” instead. And the people that built the country and created the wealth of the country through their hard work now have to pay for all the virtue-signalling madness of the Puppeticians, while they themselves have to scratch through rubbish-bins to be able to get some food onto the table. Go figure.
I am surprised it isn’t more common in the US.
For a while when I was in the Army stationed in the taxation paradise of New York the money collected from the bottle deposits was absolutely necessary for making ends meet.
During my many trips to the post-soviet CIS I saw stacks of empty beer and wine bottles at one of the bazaars I frequented. I didn’t realize until later upon receiving a fairly heavily used bottle of beer at a cafe that bottles weren’t just recycled, but that they were washed and reused.
It actually makes a lot of sense for alcoholic beverages. I am surprised that the greens and alleged environmentalists aren’t all over this. My understanding of it in the US is that the bottles are melted down and turned into new bottles, which isn’t exactly saving a lot of energy vs just cleaning them and refilling them.
While encouraging leaving bottles out of the trash to preserve the dignity of those who recycle them in Germanistan, I think that it completely misses the point. Like the earlier story of the afghani orc that raped a girl and then after the sham of a sentencing offered his victim $2500; thus turning her into a prostitute and making her complicit, shedding crocodile tears about the dignity of pensioners forced to scavenge trash for bottles to sell for food is almost as repugnant and reflects poorly upon those Germans who would have the ignorance and insensitivity to suggest such a thing. And likely, the orcs would juat take to micturating and defecating on bottles left out in such a manner to heap more indignities upon those who would try and collect them.
The same in The Netherlands,there it is worse because there is also a deposit charge on some cans which people throw away in their rubbish bags on the streets and the scavengers rip the bags open to find them leaving rubbish all over the place.
“Deposit – one of the largest employers in Germany”
I think it safe to say that most of the credit for this goes to Prince Aricept (President Biden) and his band of blithering, sexually-confused transvestite commie-toddlers. But if you’re a sentient being who walks erect with opposable thumbs, you probably already knew that.
Whether or not you believe in “global warming”, or that it is caused by human activity, the planet’s resources are finite, so they should be recycled for the benefit of future generations.
So, it is wasteful to to sell drinks in plastic bottles, which are often not recycled; they should be in glass ones, which could be passed back up the supply chain, washed and reused.