Fall in German refillable packs confirmed

The German cabinet yesterday officially confirmed a dramatic fall in the market share of refillable drinks packaging since 1997. It also approved plans by environment minister Jürgen Trittin to introduce deposits in January on one-way containers for beer, mineral water and carbonated soft drinks (ED 11/03/02). The data released yesterday was broadly speaking already known, but their official adoption clears the way for the introduction of deposits as required under Germany\'s 1991 packaging ordinance if refillables\' market share falls below 72% in two officially recorded years. After first reporting a breach of the refillables quota in 1997, the new data show further falls in their market share in the periods February 1999 to January 2000 and May 2000 to April 2001, when they dropped below 64%. The decline has been especially serious in the carbonated soft drinks sector. According to the environment ministry, latest data suggest a drop of ten percentage points in market share in the last 16 months alone. Zdroj: ENDS