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As a German, the thing I like most is that you never ever see bottle trash lying around in parks or on the street, as any stray bottle is quickly (and I mean wi
by danielbln 10y ago
As a German, the thing I like most is that you never ever see bottle trash lying around in parks or on the street, as any stray bottle is quickly (and I mean within minutes) swept up by the homeless/less fortunate.
- matt4077 10y agoIt's one of the most successful top->down redistribution projects.
- dx034 10y agoAnd at the same time there's no tax question and the rate of fraud has been very low.
- tommorris 10y agoLast time I was in Germany, I saw a few homeless men sitting at the side of the road, asking a family who were walking to church if they could have the empty plastic bottles. All three of the children rolled their empty bottles across the street to the homeless men. They had a box with quite a few empty plastic water bottles in it. One of many things that impressed me in Germany.
- mgv11 10y agoActually it is not just the homeless guys who pick up the bottles. I've seen all sort of people picking up the empty bottles here.
- mercer 10y agoOne of my flatmates did it for a while to pad his unemployment money. It's probably not that normal to do, but anywhere else I've lived this would be unthinkable.
- dx034 10y agoYou can make a lot of money with it if you do it in areas where the homeless rate is low. Especially in the first years when it wasn't that common, I knew someone who made more than 40€ per hour with a good strategy of where to go. Best thing about it is that it's tax free and legal.
- Symbiote 10y agoI see more rubbish in parks in Copenhagen, with a deposit sysetm, than I used to in London, where there is no deposit system. Homeless people pick up the beer bottles, and cola cans, but they won't collect the wine bottles, or the packaging from the snacks, but Danes seem to leave this in the park with the bottles.
- DanBC 10y agoIt's nice that the streets are clean, but maybe we'd be doing better if we just gave those people cleaning jobs that they can do plus some support with staying in the job, and accommodation, and medical help if needed.
- lmm 10y agoSure, but that's not trivial. E.g. in many cases these are people who might be unable/unwilling to work any kind of regular or fixed hours, so making this a regular-employment job would hurt those people.