Courts hinder German deposit scheme

Plans to spur Germans to even greater recycling efforts suffered a blow Tuesday when a court ruled against a new regulation putting a deposit on drink cans and many previously deposit-free bottles.





AP reports that the administrative court in Düsseldorf said the impact of the deposit for consumers and companies was too great to be settled by government decree and should have been put before parliament. Drinks companies, who have filed complaints with courts across the country, hailed the verdict as signalling the beginning of the end for a regulation they say will be too expensive to implement. But the government insisted the deposit would come into force as planned on Jan. 1. The court decision applied only to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said. State authorities urged the companies to back an accelerated appeal to a federal court to establish quickly the regulation’s legality.





A deposit on cans and many bottles of up to 1.5 L would have a EUR0.25 euro deposit. Germans already pay deposits for many glass and plastic bottles. But the government has missed recycling targets set out in earlier legislation as metal cans have become highly popular.