Study shows German PET recycling success is due to deposit schemes

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Germany’s high recycling rate of PET bottles is down to the country’s use of deposit schemes, according to a new study.

A total of 93.5% of PET bottles were recycled in Germany in 2015, with one-way deposit bottles reaching 97.9%.

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Most bottles are also recycled within Germany with more recycled content getting into bottle manufacturing, despite it being more expensive to do this since virgin prices fell in 2013.

Forum PET director Isabell Schmidt said: “PET bottles take the lion’s share in recycling rates compared to other forms of packaging.

“In particular, one-way deposit PET bottles increased slightly on what was already a very high recycling rate of 97.2% as calculated in the first edition of the 2013 study, reaching a rate of 97.9% in 2015.”