I might be wrong, but I thought that this did happen up until the 1970's in this country? It makes sense to me, I don't know why we don't have it here. There is not enough recycling (of anything recycleable) going on in this country, and some areas are beginning to panic because landfill is becoming full, and some places are shipping plastic over to china because it is cheaper to recycle it over there than here......all very bizarre and not terribly effective in the long-term I dont think.

(When my granddad was a kid - in about 1910 - he used to pay the cinema usher glass jam jars to watch the films from behind the screen!)

Why don't we have Deposit & Return in the UK, does anybody know?

Oooops, I didnt answer the question!

Well, I don't buy beer, but I would be happier paying a deposit on any recycleable product if I thought it was going to actually help.

Yeah, it irks me that the milkman brings the milk in 2 litre plastic bottles (where's my pinta??!!) - the plastic bottles, IF and only IF I put it out for recycling, gets sent off (and in some places, shipped off to china) where it is shredded and washed and god knows what else and made into fleece jackets - now, where's the sense in that? That means for every plastic milk bottle that is recycled into a jacket, one new plastic bottle has to be made.....Before, the milkman brought me a glass pint bottle, I gave it back to him and he took it away and it was washed and sterilized and given back to me with more milk in.....Where is the logic today, or am I missing something?

In Germany there have always been returnable bottles ("Pfandflaschen") as far as I can remember. A couple of years ago they have added a deposit on cans as well.

I used to earn money this way when I was a child - by returning bottles.

But compared to the UK, it is different here.

In the UK people either buy squash in plastic bottles and only buy one or two at a time....or they buy juice in tetrapacks.

In Germany, squash does not exist - only without any water, juice powder (but nobody buys it) and usually people buy drinks and juices in bottles - and they are sold in boxes of 6-12 bottles (or 24 for beer) (although tetrapacks are also quite common).

So when a typical family goes shopping here, they buy 1 or 2 boxes at once....so the deposit is high enough that people do return them - apart from that empty boxes would take up too much space and people are glad to get rid of them again when they are empty...or rather swap them for new ones again.

The deposit is 0,15 € per bottle and 3,50 € per box.

Where I live we get given a huge bin to put paper, food tins and plastic bottles. Once every 2 weeks the men come and collect/empty my bin.
Woe betide me if they find any of this stuff in my 'normal' bin, or vice versa, in fact I could be fined! They don't pay me for this, I have to pay my local council in fact via local taxes for them to take it away.
I have to save up the glass bottles and take them to the municipal tip myself, again I could be fined if I put glass out with the 'normal' rubbish.
Lucky you to get paid for recycling - I get charged via local taxes so I can recycle, and could be fined if I don't recycle!