Czech mineral water company Mattoni is now offering mineral water in refundable cans. This is the first Mattoni product sold in an aluminium can in the company’s 150-year history.
The scheme is available through online Czech supermarket Košík.cz and follows a similar system to their PET water bottles.
Since January this year, Košík has been selling Mattoni mineral water in refundable PET bottles.
Customers can now buy half-litre cans of Mattoni’s lemon-flavoured sparkling water for 19.90 CZK, along with a deposit of three crowns. You will be refunded the deposit if you return the can to a Košík.cz registered pickup.
“Our goal is for significantly more cans to be recycled in the Czech Republic than are now,” Mattoni CEO Alessandro Pasquale stated in a press release. “Deposits are an ideal way to increase the recycling rate.”
Importantly, you cannot return crushed cans. they need to be intact and undamaged before they reach the courier in order for them to be identified and processed.
Some people have questioned whether the costs of this outweigh the benefits. They argue that having trucks driving around to pick up and deposit cans is damaging to the environment and recycling the cans is not enough to counteract that.
In response, Košík.cz head Tomáš Jeřábek stated: “It looks uncomfortable, illogical, and uneconomical, but the opposite is true.”
He references the PET bottle recycling scheme, which he claims has the support of 70% of customers.
Adding a deposit price to plastic PET bottles is currently not mandatory in the Czech Republic after the Chamber of Deputies rejected the Czech Packaging Act.
