The plan was a simple one, demanding more criminal energy than brainpower: First, manufacture plastic bottles cheaply in eastern Europe and slap a fake bar code on them. Then trek the bottles into Germany, where they fetch 25 euro cents (31 US cents) apiece.Easier then printing money? Almost. In Germany, empties can be brought to grocery or beverage stores, where they are slipped through modern machines that read the bar code, compute the value of the returns, and spit out a receipt for payment, to be picked up at the nearest cash register.
Three hardworking thieves decided to try doing just such large-scale recycling for a living in September. They brought 150,000 ersatz grape soda bottles, made for a few cents each in Lithuania, to the eastern German state of Schleswig-Holstein and started trying to cash in.
Obviously, there is a flaw in the entire system – even the word “deposit” is misleading. Usually, a deposit is paid for something of value, i.e. an item that the owner would like to have returned. However, the item in question is a non-refundable bottle that cannot be reused. The incentive for criminals stems from the very low production costs – much less than one half of the deposit amount. What typically happens in such a well-intentioned state action is: more instead of fewer bottles are produced; non-refundable bottles are transported across long distances; creative forms of crime are invented.This is reminiscent of a practice in India, where the government offers a premium for killing venomous snakes if the head of the dead snake is handed in to the authorities. What happened? You guessed it – venomous snake farms.
Goooooo... Kate! I like your style! (and you have a nice pooper too...!)
Very nice Blog you have here and I LOVE the helmets. How can I get one?
Ahh, the old "Law of Unintended Consequences"...the bane of short-sighted bureaucrats and foolish politicians throughout the world.
Ah, this story seems almost poignantly appropriate in light of Milton Friedman's death.
Milton would have seen more hope for mankind in the capitalist initiative and ingenuity of those criminals than in all the high-minded recycling policies of the German state apparatus.
"Three hardworking thieves decided to try doing just such large-scale recycling for a living in September. They brought 150,000 ersatz grape soda bottles, made for a few cents each in Lithuania, to the eastern German state of Schleswig-Holstein and started trying to cash in."
Didn't Krammer and Newman try this on Seinfeld lol
Great moment is Socialism? Hardly.
Putting bounties on something is hardly Socialistic.
Things like this have been going on for years. Offer a bounty on gopher tails, some enterprizing young person finds where the turned in tails are disposed of, retrieves them and turns them in again.
In cases like this, Conservatives would probably call it gumption.
Or does Kate merely have something against recycling programs?
Venemous snake farms - I must admit this did make me chuckle.
Most so-called recycling programs are little more than feel good social engineering by government. If you'll read carefully, you discover the bottles in question weren't reusable.
Wonder if the snake farmers had any staff retention issues??
Jim L.
I wonder what is meant by not reusable. Cannot the plastic be melted down and be re-used?
Are you saying that you think that we shouldn't have deposits on bottles? Sask has one of the best recycling rates in Canada when it comes to drink containers. I'd hate to think how much of that would have ended up in the landfill without the deposit.
At 31 cents per bottle, face it, the knucklheaded bureaucrats invited criminals to do the math and fill their stupidity vacuum. I'm amazed there were only three thieves having a go at it. Besides having their sentences suspended, they should have immediate appointments to the finance ministry.
The German nanny state after spending 1.5 billion on automated bottle-exchange machines plus 500 million a year operating expenses deserves being ripped off just for their arrogance in assuming that their socialized citizen sheeple wouldn't recycle voluntarily without the 31 cent incentive.
How earth friendly are all of those metal, electricity driven recycling machines? All of the gas used in maintenance calls?
Recycling is really just a feel-good program born out of guilt. The energy required to recycle items is almost always more then the actual production of said item. Hence more pollution, etc, etc. This can be balanced against extending the life span of your local dump I suppose.
Very entrepreneurial on the part of the criminals. Snake-head farms……..hilarious.
recycled newsprint has to be the biggest blue box farce going.
the trees cut down to manufacture the newsprint were planted solely and exclusively for the production of newsprint!!! its a renewable resource and the recycling binge cost far more than the tried and true logs to pulp operation.
the problem as always with the government meddling is no one is willing to play devil's advocate here and look for potential loopholes and flaws in the regulations they shove thru.
Does it seem to anyone else that the primary industry of eastern Europe is CRIME?
Just askin'!