<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/04/it-needs-to-stay-in-the-loop-german-reuse-schemes-turn-shopping-upside-down>
"René Heiden pulls two glass yoghurt jars off the shop shelf, and lists the
nearby supermarkets in which they can be returned once empty.
His Berlin grocery shop avoids single-use packaging in favour of reusable
containers, a waste reduction model that is having something of a revival in
Germany. But it’s surprisingly hard to get right.
“You need a range of packaging to make it as convenient as possible for the
consumer,” says Heiden. An oil bottle, for example, needs a thin neck and a
small spout to help it drip – “you would never put yoghurt in one of those”.
Marmalade and spreads, on the other hand, work best in cylindrical jars that a
knife can fully scrape.
Germany has long been praised for its recycling prowess, but its efforts to
reuse packaging are perhaps more impressive. Three of its favourite drinks –
beer, water and milk (arguably in that order) – are covered by nationwide
deposit schemes. Food companies are starting to embrace the refill movement for
other foods as well.
“I’m seeing more and more products that use reusable packaging,” says Heiden,
who has devoted a wall of his shop Samariter Unverpackt to dispensers of grains
and cereals from which customers can fill home-brought containers. “But I also
see some producers who are trying to expand, but have to go back because the
handling costs are too high.”
The problem that Heiden and others are trying to tackle is a glut of garbage
that is fouling waterways, killing wildlife and – after plastics break down
into tiny particles – infiltrating our organs. In 2021, the average German
generated about eight times their bodyweight in waste: a whopping 651kg, more
than the average residents of all but four countries in Europe. Germany created
64% more plastic waste that year than it did two decades earlier, and it burned
most of it.
But it’s not just a problem here. Europe’s packaging problems have piled up as
consumerism has spread and countries across Asia have closed their ports to
ships full of western trash. As part of efforts to stop harmful garbage
clogging landfills or being burned in incinerators, the EU has set targets to
reduce packaging 5% by 2030, 10% by 2035 and 15% by 2040.
Recycling is one option, but plastic recycling is a knotty and unresolved
issue. Besides, the European hierarchy of waste has put prevention and reuse
above recycling since 2008. But campaigners say rules to reduce packaging are
riddled with loopholes – and are calling not just for tighter regulations, but
also a culture shift.
“The best packaging is the one you don’t produce,” says Nathan Dufour, who
leads efforts to promote reuse systems at the campaign group Zero Waste Europe.
If you need to use it – for hygiene reasons, say – “then that packaging needs
to stay in the loop for as long as possible”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
