France has decided against a mandatory deposit system for plastic bottles and recommends that towns and cities set up voluntary schemes, Reuters reports.
After a three-month consultation with towns and cities, as well as plastic bottle and recycling businesses, the Ministry of Ecological Transition has announced that a mandatory deposit system will not be enforced.
According to The Geo Chronicle, local municipalities fear that introducing deposit return infrastructure could impact existing municipal recycling systems, which derive a ‘significant portion’ of their revenue from plastic bottles and aluminium cans. If these systems end up in a funding deficit, taxpayers may be forced to cover the costs.
Other concerns surround the logistical and spatial challenges of setting up automated collection points – whether inside a supermarket or across urban and rural communities. Some argue that improving existing yellow bin and kerbside recycling systems would achieve better results.
“Even if France just dropped the idea of a mandatory national deposit system for plastic bottles, this is less a retreat from recycling than a fight over who controls the material, who pays for collection, and who captures the value of recycled PET,” says Thomas Tharaldsen, country chair Norway at Viridor.
He indicates that France currently collects 58% of its plastic beverage bottles annually, but points to the Single-Use Plastics Directive’s 90% target for single-use plastic products by 2029 – stating that “the problem hasn’t gone away.”
“France is choosing a territorial approach instead, targeting areas where collection performs poorly,” he continues. “The political resistance has largely come from local authorities and waste operators, who argue that municipalities have already invested heavily in collection and sorting infrastructure and could lose valuable PET streams and revenues if bottles move into a separate deposit system.”
Under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, EU Member States must establish fully operational national deposit return systems for single-use plastic beverage bottles and metal beverage containers of up to 3L in size by 1 January 2029.
By the same deadline, Member States must ensure that their deposit return systems achieve a separate collection rate of at least 90% per year by weight.
These deposit and return systems must allocate a minimum share of their budget to finance nationwide reduction and prevention efforts.
The Regulation does not mandate a set amount for the deposit charge, but it excludes packaging for wine, aromatized wine products, spirits, milk, or milk-based products from deposit return requirements.
A Member State may be exempt certain packaging from this requirement if it can prove that the format in question exceeds a separate collection rate of 90% by weight within the first two years of the Regulation’s entry into force.
Member States may also submit a request for exemption at least 24 months before the legal deadline, accompanied by an alternative strategy that sets out concrete actions.
Back in April, Portugal launched its national deposit return scheme for ready-to-drink beverage packaging. Operated by SDR Portugal: Associação de Embaladores, the system covers plastic, aluminium and steel containers of less than 3L and charges a deposit value of €0.10 per container.
Exchange for Change has also revealed the intended producer fees for the UK’s deposit return scheme, which is set to launch in October 2027. While the fee will be set at 0p until December 2028, current data suggests that they will rise to an estimated 0.6p per unit for aluminium and steel containers and 2.3p per unit for PET containers from January 2029.
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