After more than 40 years

Deposit increased: Beer is now 11 cents more expensive

If you have a lot of (still) full or empty beer bottles at home, you can rejoice: the value of empties will increase significantly on Sunday. For the first time in over 40 years, the beer deposit has been increased, and by a substantial amount. 

After more than 40 years, the deposit for returnable glass bottles will rise from 9 cents (previously 1.2 shillings) to 20 cents on Sunday. According to the Brewers' Association, the deposit increase will affect those glass bottles that currently have a 9-cent deposit in supermarket return machines: These include the classic 0.5-liter beer bottles, but also white glass bottles with screw caps and many 0.33-liter glass bottles.

As "90 percent" of these returnable glass bottles are beer bottles, the brewers' association says it initiated, negotiated and implemented the deposit increase. "The low deposit obviously led to more and more people disposing of the bottles and thus preventing them from being recycled," explained Karl Schwarz, Chairman of the Association of Breweries, recently.

Disposed bottles cause millions in damage
Reusable glass bottles that end up in the glass container instead of being returned to the supermarket are lost to breweries and other beverage producers and, according to the association, cause millions in damage to the industry. "We assume that the higher deposit will ensure that the return intervals are shortened," said Florian Berger, Managing Director of the Brewers' Association.

The association expects the deposit increase to result in more bottles being returned. "This will save a lot of resources in the very energy-intensive production of glass bottles," says association chairman Schwarz. Reusable glass bottles can be refilled up to 40 times.