Bottle Refund App

Your Impact

Financing period: 11 June 2019 to 17 July 2019
With your help we will support the Enactus “Refundable bottle deposit” project as follows:

Financial

We support the Refundable bottle deposit marketplace with the revenues that we earn during the fundraising period.
Media

Storytelling about our projects and the subject area is planned as part of our regular media work.

Better jobs for informal bottle collectors

Why?

Deposit systems for bottles or cans are widespread, especially in Europe. In Germany, a deposit of between eight and 50 cents is paid per bottle. But many bottles do not find their way back. According to press reports, let alone in Germany more than 700 million deposit bottles per year are not returned.

At the same time, the introduction of bottle deposit schemes has led to the phenomenon of bottle collectors. These collect abandoned or illegally thrown away deposit bottles or false throws abandoned next to deposit machines, or search for them in waste bins or waste glass containers and return them to the deposit system. Often this is a legal grey area, as in some countries searching for bottles in glass containers is illegal.

In many cities, initiatives such as “Deposit belongs aside the bin” have been launched to simplify deposit collection. The organisation Viva con Agua, founded in the vicinity of the Hamburg St Pauli soccer club, offers visitors to concerts and festivals the opportunity to donate their bottle or cup deposits to support drinking water projects worldwide.

How?

The “Pfandgeben” initiative in Germany likewise seeks to professionalize the deposit collection system by creating a new marketplace with help of a smartphone App. The App connects people who like to get rid of their refundable deposit bottles with people who earn their living by collecting bottles. The initiative does not only improve the working conditions in this informal sector, but is also good for the environment. It helps to increase the number of bottles which are returned and thus are re-used.

Who is behind the project?

Pfandgeben.de was founded in 2011 by Jonas Kakoschke as part of the communication design course at the HTW Berlin.

Today, the initiative is supported by the Enactus project group “Pfandschaf(f)t” of the Leibniz University Hannover. Enactus developed the app “Pfandgeben.de” and supports the volunteer core team around Jonas Kakoschke and Nike Wilhelms in making the project better known, among others through its social media work.

More Information