Pfand, what is that? (english)

Yesterday I decided to write an article about pfand after meeting at work three Spaniards who asked me, showing me a receipt “what does this word mean? Pfand? Is it that they saw that we are foreigner and they ripped us off?”. I smiled, because it was actually the same thing I thought when I had to deal with pfand. I was not in Germany, I was in Denmark where it is actually called....... well I don't know, I cannot remember now. I took the bottle back to the store where there was such machine:

I pushed the bottle in and printed a receipt. I was actually believing that the machine would give me money straight back, but no, it was not so. The machine can just print a receipt which has a barcode on, and the procedure is like this: you basically just need to bring to the receipt to the cashier, and they will give you your money back. The idea behind pfand is of course the forced recycling: while in some countries you might end up walking among the trash (think when you are walking away from a concert...) here, if you will be good and take the bottle back, they give you money. Or better: you pay a deposit on each bottle, so if you take the bottle back you will get the money, otherwise you lost them. It is a hostage....

Don't panic if you are paying more tha what you expected to, take a look at the receipt and you will read the word “Pfand”:

bottles and cans have this mark:

the machine will recognise it and print a receipt with a barcode on that has to be brought to the cashier.

Some are a little different, “Mehrwegflasche” is written on them. In this case you just have to take them directly to the cashier.

I believe that this system is working pretty well, on the streets I have never seen any bottle. Probably they have all been collected by the Pfandsammlern, people who, instead of panhandling, collect the bottles and take them to the stores to make some money out of them. It is a sort of implicit cooperation: collecting bottles they keep the city clean, and for that they earn 25 cents per bottle.

This system also works for Becher (cups for tap drinks) and beer mugs. Beer is aparently more expensive, but when you bring the cup back, they give you 1 euro. Sometimes people don't bring mugs back, like as if they were buying it just for one euro. I am not really sure about how this thing is seen, I don't know if they see it as if they were stealing a mug whose price is more than one euro, or if it's accepted since the people will not get their deposit back. That's a question for the locals, and perhaps they will also have contrasting opinions...

Personally, I like the pfand-system, I think it's a good idea. What do you think?

So, pay attention when you are in a pfand country, cause those bottles you've thrown in the trashbin are worth a little money (25 cents each, don't forget that in nordic countries beer's price is around 30-90 cents...). Keep your eyes open!