Pfand and games

I am in love with the word Pfand.

It means security (as in deposit) and, just in case you are wondering, the gender of the word is Neutral.

The Germans are into recycling like nobody I've seen before. My apartment has one bin for plastics/packaging, one for paper and one for regular garbage. I also have a bag for glass bottles which I have to take 30 meters down the road to the communal bins where I separate it into Brown, Green and Clear glass! Next to my glass bottles are my Beer bottles and plastic water and softdrink bottles which get taken back to the shop to get my Pfand back.

When it is written down like that it actually sounds very anally retentive and I bet you are thinking that I have a kitchen full of rubbish bins. I can assure you that only a small portion of the kitchen is devoted to refuse... My bedroom is a different matter!

How many of you in Australia would carry an empty coke bottle in your bag so that you could put recycle it when you got home? My guess is....None. But here, I do it all the time. A bottle of coke costs around 1.20 Euro. But, the Pfand on these bottles is around .15 Euro (which at the moment is about AU$5!). It is a similiar story with Beer bottles and with large coke bottles except with these the pfand is .25 Euro! Brilliant! As far as i'm aware the only paid domestic recycling sytem in Australia is the 5c per aluminium can you get in South Australia which is pretty stingy in comparison.

If you can't be bothered taking the bottles down to the shop that is fine, you can put them in the bin or leave your beer bottles next to the bin and let the homeless or unemployed collect them! Beats begging! I was at a park where maybe 200 people were sitting around drinking and there were 3 guys who each had a section and were loading the beer bottles into shopping trolleys - one guy was onto his 2nd trolley! He could probably make 100Euro doing that, and at the same time, rids the park of beer bottles that the drunk youths certainly wouldn't be taking to the bin!

I also encountered the Pfand system at the Ping Pong place I went to (see previous blog: Dr Pong). I bought a glass of Mineral water was charged a a whopping 3 Euro! The barstaff must have noticed my confused gazing at my change filled hand because they explaned that the drink was 1.50 but there is a 2.50 Pfand! They also gave me a token which I was to return with the Glass when I was finished. This was to stop people stealing the glasses to return them for the cash. Only if you return the glass and the token will you receive your money back. Brilliant. Not only do they stop people stealing glasses (At 2.50 Euro you could buy them plenty cheaper!), but they also reduce the instance of broken glass around the floor!

The other handy thing is if you run out of change for the bus, all you need to do is grab some empty bottles from the kitchen on your way out and take them back to the kiosk on the way!

Germans - Gotta love em!