114. How Norway gets 98% of its bottles and cans back

Talking Rubbish - The Recycling Podcast

This episode dissects Norway's highly successful deposit return scheme, revealing how a voluntary system paired with steep environmental levies and extensive return infrastructure

Key takeaways

• Norway achieves ~98% container return rates through a voluntary DRS where producers face environmental levies up to 56p per metal can if they miss a 95% collection target.
• Infinitum operates Norway's system, leveraging thousands of reverse vending machines and manual points to ensure returns are as convenient as purchases.

Main topics

• Norway deposit return scheme mechanics
• Environmental levies and producer incentives

Notable quotes

"It's not just set the deposit at 20p and suddenly you've solved recycling."

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates that high recycling rates depend on a holistic mix of financial

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, your weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one-sided stories. In this episode, we will discuss DRS in Norway. Are oven gloves rubbish or not? I have a question about the lowest impact supermarket meal deal and how will yoghurt be packaged in our dream shop? I'm James Piper and I'm joined by Robbie Staniforth, my far from rubbish friend. Good morning, Robbie. Morning, Speaker 1 (0:27) James. Speaker 2 (0:28) How Speaker 1 (0:28) are you today? Yeah, very well. Intrigued by some of those things that I've got no idea what's about to come up. Yes, I told you not Speaker 2 (0:35) to read the supermarket meal deal one because I want your opinions. So that'll be a nice surprise. Speaker 1 (0:41) That was exactly what I Speaker 2 (0:42) wanted. And today, it's the 1st of October as this episode goes out, which means that tonight... We are at this awards ceremony. The Podcast Awards. British Podcast Awards. So just as a reminder, we're up for three awards, Education, Lifestyle and Impact. And the best thing you can do to find out whether we've won or not is to follow us on social media at Rubbish Podcast, where I will, whether we win or not, I will put it on social media. Speaker 1 (1:10) Okay, so we're going for it. We've put it out there. It's Thursday morning. You're listening to this. Thursday night, we find out. whether we go home empty Speaker 2 (1:19) -handed. Which we won't be too sad about because we've been Speaker 1 (1:22) shortlisted. Yes. It's very, very cool to be shortlisted. Very true. Speaker 2 (1:26) Very true. So we're really excited by that. We're going to have a great evening, whatever happens. Can't wait. Speaker 2 (1:37) Trash talk. Elephant in the room, we did promise last week that we would do packaging promotions gone wrong. Oh Speaker 1 (1:43) yes, I Speaker 2 (1:43) forgot we made the promise. Speaker 1 (1:45) Yeah, okay. Speaker 2 (1:46) And then we decided that we were going to interview someone from Exchange for Change as our next Speaker 1 (1:52) interview, which will be next week. So we need a fourth DRS. Fourth DRS episode, yeah. And at Speaker 2 (1:57) the same time, you had someone text saying, can you just do an episode of Places Where It's Going Right? Yeah. Where DRS is good. Yeah. And we thought, yes, that's the missing piece of our DRS story. So let's do something about DRS in countries where it's gone well. And that means we've done our first five-episode arc, which is an unbelievably unplanned series. These Speaker 1 (2:19) two guys can talk about anything for any length of time. It's so true. But the main thing was that it wasn't about just being positive about... because the reason we hadn't talked about the positivity was because it was all couched in what's going to happen in the UK. And the reality is there aren't that many that you can make a direct comparison to because the UK waste management infrastructure is so different. And that's why we sort of hadn't talked glowingly about previous countries because they're sort of not the same as the UK and not very similar to how we go about dealing with waste. But that being said, it is working in many corners of the world. So that is the elephant in the room too, is it can work. And we keep our fingers crossed that it will work in the UK. And Speaker 2 (3:12) so originally, I'd planned to go through lots and lots of countries like Norway, Germany, Finland, all these countries where DRS is seen as a success. I started in Norway, got so stuck into Norway, I thought, actually, let's just do Norway because it's really good. It's got all the elements. of what makes a successful DRS. So rather than just listing out countries, we're going to spend all of our time looking at Norway, which is great because it's the only country I've actually been able to make a successful deposit return as a tourist. So it feels good. Okay, so you had a good experience yourself there. I did. And so did, I mean, UK government officials, I think it's fair to say, because when we were designing the UK DRS, Norway is the country the UK turned to a lot. to say how do we make this successful and lots and lots of people went out to visit Norway to experience their DRS to help design ours. Speaker 1 (4:03) Yeah including myself so ReCoop which is a recycling charity for plastics they organized a field trip for a few of us you know right in the early days of the policy being made well before the government had sort of been clear about timelines and how it would work we went on a field trip out to Norway to primarily Oslo but also the outskirts to see it in action. Just Speaker 2 (4:28) to give the context, Norway is a much smaller country than the UK. It's about 5.6 million people. And they are one of the very first countries in the world to develop a deposit return system. So originally they had one for reusable glass bottles all the way back in 1902. And then reverse vending machines were introduced in the 1970s. And today's system for plastic bottles and cans arrived in 1999. so it's been over 27 years now the like drs as we are developing yeah as they know it now Speaker 1 (4:59) yeah okay and Speaker 2 (5:00) their system is run by a not-for Speaker 1 (5:02) -profit Speaker 2 (5:02) organization called Speaker 1 (5:03) infinitum Yeah, we had a talk from Infinitum and they were really engaging in terms of what they do to run the system, put it together, the equivalent of Exchange for Change in the UK, basically. And Speaker 2 (5:16) the results are so extraordinary. I mean, they are amazing. In 2025, Norwegians return more than 1.6 billion plastic bottles and cans for their deposits, which equals about 92 % of plastic bottles and 93 % of cans. And if you include bottles and cans that are captured outside of that deposit scheme, it was coming in at about 98%. Wow, Speaker 1 (5:39) that's amazing. So there's other bins. It's just a convenience type thing that people are recycling them elsewhere or whatever. It's not that they're kind of just sticking them in the bin, that extra sort of 7 % for the plastic bottles that's missing. Speaker 2 (5:53) There is one thing Norway did that I actually didn't know they'd done. I didn't go out to Norway, so I haven't experienced this. But as I was doing the research, I was like, This is how you make DRS a success. What Norway did, or what Norway has done, is they've made DRS voluntary. Speaker 1 (6:10) Yeah, which sounds bad on the surface of it. Who's going to volunteer to do it? As far as I can Speaker 2 (6:16) tell, there is not legislation requiring you to put a deposit on your bottles and cans. You could put a drink on the market in Norway and not apply a deposit to it. But the government did something very clever. And they said, we're going to develop environmental taxes. And there are two environmental levies that are applied to drinks bottles. They have like a single use levy, which is relatively low. And then they have a, I guess, a recyclable collecting level levy where there is a fee applied if your collection rate is below a certain level. And at 95 % collection, that fee completely disappears. Wow. Okay. So. What they did was they said, we're going to apply a fee. You achieve a 95 % collection rate, that fee disappears. And that stimulated the whole of industry to say, we want a 95 % collection rate. The only way you're going to get a 95 % collection rate is with a deposit scheme. I'm not naive. I don't think you can achieve that with curbside. You have to do that through a deposit scheme. And that environmental levy is really, really expensive. Speaker 1 (7:27) Ah, okay. So that's the avoiding the fees. Because in the UK, we obviously talked about in the previous episodes, the fact that there's a zero producer fee to even input into the system. Well, this is a totally different metric that's saying you're going to get charged an awful lot unless you do it. Yeah. So in 2026, I believe, based on the exchange rate yesterday, that Speaker 2 (7:52) it is about 56p. per container for a metal can and 34p for plastic. So you are in a position where if you think about the UK, we've got EPR that's like 5p on glass bottles and it's stressing the glass industry out and saying it's going to be the end of glass Speaker 1 (8:10) at Speaker 2 (8:10) 5p. And you've got 2p coming through potentially on DRS. We are talking about huge numbers, 56p and 34p per container. as an environmental levy from the government if you're not achieving a 95 % return rate. Speaker 1 (8:27) Very clever. It seems to have driven the right behaviour and makes one wonder why the UK government didn't go for something similar. It's very punitive. Let's, like, call a spade a spade. It's like you need to be a very strong government to push that through, don't you? To say, we actually do believe in high taxation and we will tax you unless you do this thing. And I think that's possibly where the politics in the UK fall down somewhat, to have such a heavy-handed line where businesses will be taxed at a high level is a bit problematic in the UK, I would say, given our political culture. Speaker 2 (9:07) Rather than legislating DRS and saying we have to have a DRS system, I'm a big fan of, no, we're just going to have a fee if you don't achieve a certain recycling rate. Because you let industry solve how to get the recycling rate, whether they want a deposit system or kerb cycle, whatever. Industry can solve the problem, not the government. The government can just make money out of it if they don't solve the problem. Speaker 1 (9:29) So Speaker 2 (9:29) you can just phase that in and say, well, this year we're Speaker 1 (9:32) going Speaker 2 (9:32) to have a 70 % collection rate, then 75, then 80, then 85, then 90, 95. And DRS will come in in that way. Now, I guess the government might be doing that because they've said they're going to have these targets each year on return rates. And no one really knows how they're going to penalise them. So you could do it that way. I would be absolutely astonished if this government or reform or conservatives or anyone said we're going to put that kind of levy. It's just not going to be that high. Highly unlikely. Infinitum's website has this quite interesting calculator because what they're saying is, and this is why I think it's voluntary, they're saying if you want to put a drink on the market and you want to avoid the environmental levy, you have to put a deposit on it because they've basically created a closed system. They said if you're in the deposit system, you're part of our collective 95 % container rate, so you get a discount. And if you're not in our system, if you just put a drink on the market and you don't have a deposit, then... I think you do pay the environmental levy, even though the whole category is achieving more than 95%. It's not about the category. It's about whether you are part of the system achieving 95%. And so it's quite compelling when you go on this calculator because they're basically going, do you want to be part of our DRS or not? If not, here's your 50p per container bill. If yes, you've just saved 50p per container. You know, that's basically what the calculator does. So it's pretty... pretty straightforward in terms of a motivator for drinks companies putting a product on the market. Speaker 1 (11:00) And you can see how they've developed that over time to say, effectively, if you don't like the deposit return scheme, collect your own containers and get to 95%. Good luck doing that on your own. Unless you've got some sort of post-bac or refill system where the people consuming your drinks come to your store to refill them or something, you're snookered. There's no way you're going to be able to do that. And so that's where competition and collaboration intersects, doesn't it? You've got this motivating factor that your competitors are doing and you can't compete with them unless you're part of this great collaboration that all of the brands then sign up to and believe in because they are seeing a massive benefit compared to what they could be costed or paying. Speaker 2 (11:52) So beyond the environmental levy, there's then the deposit itself. And in terms of value, Norway is actually fairly similar to the proposed UK amount. So again, accounting for exchange rate, it's about 17p for a container up to 500ml and 25p for larger containers. And the UK is currently proposing a flat fee of 20p. So we're in that range. And having a meaningful deposit is a very important part of a successful DRS. And this is where parts of the US have got very stuck because their deposits are often fixed into legislation. And it's difficult and politically hard for states to change those deposits. And so there are, I think, there are 10 states that have a deposit return scheme in the US. They call it bottle bills. I think Oregon started using the term bottle bill and then everyone sort of copied it. So now they call it bottle bills. Speaker 2 (12:49) I think there's 10 states that have DRS, and seven of those states start with a 5 cent deposit. So it's just not enough money. And they've been 5 cents for, you know, 20 years. So Oregon is a good example of this, actually, because its 5 cent deposit got redemption rates in the early days of 90%. So, Speaker 1 (13:11) you know, Speaker 2 (13:11) 20 years ago, they were getting redemptions around 90%. But over time, as the five cents is worth less, you watch your redemption rates fall. And they fell to 64 % in 2015. Speaker 1 (13:25) So Speaker 2 (13:26) you've got something that started at 90 % because the five cents was meaningful coming down to 64 % as the five cents is less meaningful. The state decided to double the deposit to 10 cents in 2017 and the redemption rates rose again. So Oregon is such a nice case study of like... proof that the value of the deposit is really important. Speaker 1 (13:45) In my mind's eye, I can't conceive of how a deposit return scheme could go backwards in return rates. So it's crazy to realise that it's not all free money. Of course you're going to be motivated to do it, depending on that level that you set really has a massive impact. And it will happen in the UK. If you don't change that Speaker 2 (14:07) to NTP... and the 20p becomes worth less over time, you eventually start losing redemption rates. So you have to keep adjusting the deposit. You have to keep adjusting it for inflation. Speaker 1 (14:18) Motivating people is Speaker 2 (14:19) pointless if returning the thing is a pain. And Norway have got this right. I mean, lots of countries that do DRS well have got this right in terms of making sure that there are enough return points. And there are... I think around 3,500 reverse vending machines in Norway and around 10,000 manual return points. That is an extraordinary number of return points for a country of only 5.6 million people. So just to put that in context, the UK is forecast to have about 16,000 reverse vending machines and 25,000 manual return points. So we will have three times the number of collection points compared to Norway, but for 12 times the population. Speaker 1 (15:00) Wow, okay. So the ratios are going to be way off compared to Norway. Speaker 2 (15:05) Yeah, now there is an argument. I guess Norway is probably, I haven't done this research, but I think Norwegians would agree with this, more spread. Oh, okay. The population Speaker 1 (15:15) density is not the same. Yeah,