Austria's disposable deposit: record returns and high acceptance!

Austria's disposable deposit: record returns and high acceptance!

Austria has been introducing a one-way deposit system since the beginning of 2025, which is already showing impressive results. Loud 5min Millions of bottles and cans have found their way out of the garbage cans and into the recycling cycle. Providers of take-back systems such as TOMRA rate the way the system works positively and particularly emphasize the advantages: reducing litter, increasing recycling rates and recovering valuable raw materials such as aluminum and PET.

On July 12, 2025, over 8.3 million disposable packaging items were returned to TOMRA deposit machines. A particularly outstanding event was the return of almost 23,000 containers from a single machine in one day. The popularity of multifeed bulk collection machines, which can accept up to 100 containers at a time, contributes to the efficiency of the system. The return rate grew by an impressive 82 percent between May and June 2025, resulting in almost double the amount of single-use empty containers collected compared to the previous month.

Excellent system availability

The availability of the return devices was on average over 95 percent during business hours, which speaks for the high reliability of the system. This is done by OTS confirms that the quality of the collection is crucial for pure recycling.

In international comparison, Austria performs well. Germany has had a response rate of around 98 percent since 2003, and Norway with around 92.3 percent and Lithuania with a rate of 91.9 percent at the end of 2017 also show that such systems can work effectively. Approval of the respective systems in these countries has been above average in recent years.

A long-term goal: resource reduction

TOMRA, founded in 1972, offers empties return systems worldwide and aims to reduce dependence on raw materials and avoid packaging waste in the environment. Over 48 billion empty beverage containers are recycled every year. With their technology, they strive to increase resource productivity and thus have a positive impact on the environment.

The beginnings of the one-way deposit system in Austria already show that the environmentally friendly initiative is not only receiving support from users, but is also making substantial progress in waste management. Given its high level of acceptance and its already remarkable success, Austria could serve as a role model for other countries in the near future.