Norway sets new record for deposited bottles

TomraTomra. Gorm Kallestad / Scanpix

Last year  970 million  bottles and cans were returned for deposit  in Norway. That’s an increase of nearly 17 percent from the previous year and a new record.

On average, each Norwegian returns 186 deposit bottles a year – or one bottle every other day. This means Norway is at the top of the list of the countries with the largest number of bottles and cans being returned per person,   ahead of Sweden, who is on a solid second place with 171  units returned for deposit per person per year, the newspaper VG reports.
Marketing Director Randi Haavik Varberg in mortgage company Infinitum thinks increased environmental awareness among the public is one of the explanations that it is returned more. But there have also been an increase in the proportion of bottles on the market with a deposit. Nevertheless, not all cans and bottles sold in store, are returned as deposits. But 86 percent are, which is a slight increase from the previous year, where 85 percent were returned as deposits.
A lot of bottles and cans are returned for deposit all over the country, but Troms  is at the very top of the list with 231 bottles or cans per capita. Østfold is at the bottom of the list with only 147 units per capita.
– Swedish figures show that it is precisely the border towns that tops the statistics of bottles and cans being returned for deposits. This means in practice that many Norwegians who go shopping in Sweden also return to Sweden to get the deposits,  Varberg says.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today