The European Union has approved a new Packaging Regulation that will require member states to collect at least 90% of plastic bottles and metal beverage containers up to three litres separately by 2029, a target that will force many countries to introduce deposit-return systems for the first time. The rule has drawn criticism from Juan Carlos Higueras, an economist and vice-dean of EAE Business School, who argues the policy ignores the time consumers will lose and the emissions the new system could generate.
Under the regulation, states that cannot rely on existing exceptions must set up deposit, return and refund schemes. The mechanism is simple in principle: shoppers pay an extra amount on top of the price of a drink, then get that deposit back when they return the empty container.
How the system is meant to work
The regulation requires one or more coordinated operators to run each scheme. These operators must be independent and non-profit, have control systems in place, and hold the financial and managerial capacity to run the necessary infrastructure. Shops will be obliged, with limited exceptions for lack of space, to accept the packaging materials and formats they sell and to refund the deposit to customers, even without a purchase receipt.
Higueras noted that consumers advance the money upfront, while retailers, operators, manufacturers and public administrations have to organise how it gets returned. He said this raises questions over who pays for the reverse vending machines, collection, storage, transport, counting, software, information campaigns and staff, adding that businesses tend to pass on costs whenever they can.
He also pointed to a liquidity problem hidden inside the scheme: someone has to have cash on hand to refund deposits. A single shop could take in hundreds of bottles and cans in one afternoon, some bought elsewhere, and must repay customers on the spot. Brussels requires the deposit to be returned, Higueras said, but the money does not appear automatically inside the recycling machine. Large chains may absorb the administrative burden, he said, but for small shops it could become a real problem, turning the local supermarket into seller, warehouse, collection point and deposit-refund window all at once.
Time lost and emissions emitted
Higueras also raised what he called a curious blind spot around consumers' own time. Empty bottles and cans will pile up at home through the week because they now carry a small monetary value that is lost if thrown in the regular bin. Come Saturday, he said, people will have to bag them up, possibly load them into a car, and drive to a return point, a trip that could total six kilometres round-trip if the point is three kilometres away, or twenty kilometres if it is ten away. That journey burns fuel, generates emissions and eats into free time spent recovering money consumers were already required to advance, he said, despite the regulation's stated aim of making return points accessible and close to consumers, with shops obliged to accept the packaging they sell.
Higueras argued the real question is not whether returning a can is possible, but who accounts for the cost of doing it. Brussels will tally every bottle recovered, he said, but not the time lost returning it. Environmental assessments will register the recovered packaging, he said, but are unlikely to capture the twenty minutes spent by the consumer, the week spent storing empty containers at home, the petrol used to travel, or the wait in line at a return machine. In economics, he said, time has value and wellbeing carries an opportunity cost, even though neither comes with a barcode.
