A return machine in Strzyżów, Poland. Photo: Patryk Duszkiewicz / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
A year after Poland switched on its deposit-return system, the country's climate ministry says people have handed back 5 billion bottles and cans. Shoppers pay a small deposit when they buy a drink and get it back when they return the empty container.
Key facts
5 billion bottles and cans were collected in the scheme's first year. It started on 1 October 2025.
There are about 65,500 collection points across the country, more than 23,500 of them with automated return machines.
Monthly returns roughly doubled during the year, from around 480 million to around 900 million containers.
In a repeat clean-up of the same stretch of the Oder river in Wrocław, volunteers found 90% fewer plastic PET bottles than before the scheme.
Why it matters
A deposit turns an empty bottle into something worth keeping. Poland's numbers show that a large country can change an everyday habit within a single year, and the cleaner riverbank hints at what that means for nature.
Worth noting
About 60% of eligible containers are coming back so far, still well below the 90% the system is ultimately aiming for, and some users report queues and full machines. On the Oder, glass litter actually increased, and the researchers say the scheme's effect can't be fully separated from other factors. The ministry plans to add small single-use glass bottles to the system over roughly two years.