Estonian bottles and cans retire to Nordic countries

The free movement and employment of people across borders has brought with it the large-scale migration of plastic bottles and aluminium cans to the Nordic countries – including almost a billion annually from enthusiastic exporters outside of the region such as Estonia and Germany.

At the same time, deposits on plastic bottles purchased in Denmark, for example, cannot be returned in Sweden, and as such many cans and bottles are simply disposed of among ordinary refuse or left to pollute the environment.

Taking consumer complaints into consideration, and in order to preserve the natural environment, representatives of the Nordic countries asked Jan Rehnberg, former director of the Swedish deposit system and current consultant, to look at options for the development of a common Nordic deposit system for cans and bottles. Rehnberg has stated that many aspects support the establishment of a joint system, but that there are also many obstacles to its creation.