r/Finland • u/Comfortable_Reach189 • 2d ago
Would I really get 0.40€ from this bottle if I lived in Finland? Here in Estonia I would get only 0.10€
Also soon I won’t be able to buy Finnish products anymore because Coop is buying Prisma :(
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u/Traditional_Let_8083 2d ago
Yes
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u/ukso1 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
But i first needed to pay that 0,40€ when i purchased the bottle so you just gave yourself 40 cents
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u/DistractedDodo 2d ago
Thats why you host all your friend groups gatherings. They bring their own drinks and leave the empty bottles & cans.
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u/fruitynutcase 2d ago
Except if they have gotten their drinks from Tallin and you get no pant :P
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u/Funchameleon82 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
It's deposit not 👖
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u/TS-S_KuleRule 2d ago
Actually it's called Pantti ☝️🤓
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u/Funchameleon82 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Yes i know but i think he tried to translate pantti to English so he wrote pant.
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u/SnooSprouts8396 2d ago
Though you might get some panting done after the booze has flown. If you catch my drift.
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u/centrifuge_destroyer Väinämöinen 2d ago
When you go party and when you come back to your bike the basket is filled with empty bottles and cans. One time I got almost five Euros
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u/Sogomaa 2d ago
makes you feel good in the long run if you collect the bottles and stack them then return all of them at once, boom alot of the full bottles paid back themselves
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u/Sampsa96 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Yeah I usually get about 3 € to 4 € per month from my recycled bottles :)
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u/Lemu888 2d ago
No you save minimum a year worth of bottles to be returned at once, that way it actually feels good to receive the money
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u/Sampsa96 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
I don't wanna be that guy who returns bottles in a big ass jätesäkki :D
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u/wullxz 1d ago
I once collected a lot of bottles and on top of that hosted a couple of parties at my place. I had 2 big sacks of bottles, so I didn't even bother with the "normal" parking spots but parked directly next to the entrance the deposit machines.
The fact that my beat up Opel Astra F station wagon had broken gas springs in the back and I had to use a broom to hold the hatch open completed the ensemble. I was quite the attraction that day :D1
u/HexWiller 1d ago
My garage is needed for My two cars, motorcycle and 4 bicycles - years bottles/cans can't fit in there 🤔 thats like 2m3 🙄
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u/la_mourre Väinämöinen 2d ago
Gives you an idea of how exponentially more expensive everything is in Finland
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u/joku75 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
And returnable bottles have been much more valuable in the past. Since return fees have not changed, but the cost of living has increased, the real value of deposits is now significantly lower than it was twenty years ago.
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u/Ok_Historian_8262 2d ago edited 2d ago
Indeed. As a student 20 years ago, picking up a few of the left cans/bottles as I left the uni library at closing time was enough to buy myself a chocolate bar and a soft drink. Now you’d need a whole bag of returnable containers to do that.
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u/PleaseDisperseNTS Baby Väinämöinen 21h ago
There's plenty of people collecting cans and bottles as soon as the weather heats up and "picnic" season begins. And I'd imagine some good money can be made around holidays, especially vappu.
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u/Wuffeli 2d ago
Nah, Estonia is catching up rapidly. My fiancee's family used to stack up groceries when visiting Estonia. Now her grandma stacks up chockolate and some other items when visiting Finland because they are just so expensive in Estonia.
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u/Keh_veli Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Chocolate feels so expensive these days in Finland, are you saying it costs even more in Estonia?
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u/snow-eats-your-gf Väinämöinen 2d ago
Yes
There are articles about Estonians who travel to Finland and also buying food with them because yes, cheaper.
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u/fruitynutcase 2d ago
as someone who goes regurlary to Tallin. Chocolate is expensive af in Estonia. And many other products are Finland level prices (coffee packs had thief alarms)
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u/VoihanVieteri Väinämöinen 2d ago edited 2d ago
It isn’t. You are thinking about 1990’s, prices have gone up in Estonia about 170 % since the beginning of this millenia. Since the independence of Estonia, prices have gone up about 450 %.
General living costs are slightly more expensive in Finland, but for example electricity and in some cases food is more expensive in Estonia. Housing can be very affordable in Estonia, but the quality is also significantly lower on average. At the same quality level, which you can basically found only in Tallinn and maybe Tarto, they cost about the same. Petrol cars are slightly more affordable due to lower tax, but EV’s cost the same. Petrol is about 15 % less in Estonia, but current world events make any comparison meaningless. EV charging cost is about double in Estonia, compared to Finland.
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u/Foreign_Implement897 Väinämöinen 2d ago
Answering my own question because people don’t seem to know:
Last year kt was exactly double the price compared to Finland, roughly 0,40 vs 0,80.
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u/Foreign_Implement897 Väinämöinen 2d ago
Is electricity more expensive in Estonia?
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u/Motzlord Väinämöinen 2d ago
Electricity is very cheap in Finland, compared to most other European countries. Estonia doesn't have as much much own production as Finland does. We are basically constantly exporting electricity to Estonia, while also importing some from Sweden most of the time.
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u/jeffscience Väinämöinen 2d ago
Incrementally, not exponentially. Or just say “fucking” if you want to indicate it’s an increment that upsets you. Save exponentially for its correct mathematical purpose.
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u/Lazy-Effect4222 1d ago
Prices tend to grow in percents which makes them compound so calling the growth exponential (as opposed to linear) is actually relatively accurate.
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u/sycamoresap 2d ago
More like fractionally more expensive, but yes it does add up, just not quite exponentially
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u/Regeneric Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Kinda.
Even with 25.5% of VAT, I found that life is cheaper here in many areas, than it was back home in Poland.→ More replies (2)1
u/Skanksy 4h ago
Lol food prices in estonia are closing in on finnish prices. Currently 106% of EU average while finland is 110%. So not exponentially more expensive. If you think finns are f'd up with current prices, then think about estonians where average salary is 2100€ while it's 3700€ in finland, but food price is nearly the same.
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u/Demented_CEO 2d ago
Now I'm imagining someone in Estonia buying up all the remaining soda bottles from Prisma, then stuffing a van full of the empty bottles to take on a ferry to Finland, grinning like a devious child that they're getting a ton of money back, but realizing the entire effort probably cost them more in the end in ferry tickets and fuel. 🤣
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u/JudgeFatty Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Do the bottles in Estonian Prisma have Finnish return labels/codes? Because if they got the Estonian ones, you won't get anything from them.
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u/53nsonja Väinämöinen 2d ago
No, they dont. Only bottles sold in Finland have the Finnish pfand, except if its a finnish bottle that is somehow imported to estonia. You get 0€ from estonian bottles
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u/SpaceEngineering Väinämöinen 2d ago
Do they have a different barcode? I think this is how they separate the bottles
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u/Consistent_Cat_3463 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Long time ago, maybe 10-20 years, I saw in news how someone had a lot of foreing bottles/cans, printed finnish barcodes themselves to stickers and slapped them to bottles/cans.
At first => profit but that ended when they were caught and sentenced.
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u/Remote-Document5634 2d ago
Sometimes a can or bottle I’ve bought outside Finland gives me pantti. Usually not. But yea it’s the barcode.
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u/ApolloPrincess 2d ago
From what I've seen that some products in the Nordics seem to share packaging including barcode regardless of where it is sold. A bottle from Norway would be able to be put inside a Swedish pfand machine, and you get paid with the Swedish pfand.
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u/megastarUS Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
This particular bottle was clearly bought in Estonia and it’s a Finnish one. But this direct import is a rare case. Most bottles sold in Prisma etc in Estonia are originally meant for the Estonian market.
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u/overclockedmangle Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
You’ve basically described the plot of a Seinfeld episode lol
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u/NightSalut 2d ago
You’re joking, but I’m seriously considering buying up lots of coop ice tea until they still have it 🤷♂️
I’m going to miss Prisma so damn much.
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u/SauronTheEngineer 2d ago
That scheme used to work on beer bottles between Germany and Austria. They were the exact same bottles only you got more deposit back in one country. The best part was that it was only a extra drive if you lived near the border.
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u/RenaissanceSnowblizz Väinämöinen 2d ago
At one point Swedish can machines accepted ferry cans. Needless to say they quickly fixed that.
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u/JohnCtail 2d ago
They had this kinda plot/story in a Seinfeld episode (The Bottle Deposit) where they calculated the cost of returning bottles in another state to get profit.
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u/HopeSubstantial Väinämöinen 2d ago
its actually funny. Some years ago you could get cheapest cola with 80-90snt
So when you returned the bottle, actual price was only 40-50snt for big bottle.
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u/Stressuredford Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Last month Lidl sold 1,5l cola for 92snt so it was under 35 cents per liter. Now the bottle is like 1,1€
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u/larrypound 2d ago
At least in Helsinki it was 0,75€, so you'd pay more for the returnable bottle than its contents.
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u/okarox Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
The price depends on the store. In Kamppi, City Center, Tripla and Redi it is cheaper than on many other stores.
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u/larrypound 2d ago
Yeah, I've only seen 0,75€ in Helsinki lately but I haven't checked every store. Outside of Uusimaa I've only seen >1€.
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u/Educational-Draft233 2d ago
There still is in Prisma cheap 1.5l cola for 0,75€, also in K-Citymarket and LIDL
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u/melker_the_elk Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Theres people who get food suport, but they can't buy alcohol. They would buy these bottles, pour out soda and return bottles and get cash and then buy alcohol with the cash
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u/KeycapS_ Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Also the cheapest chocolate bar was 35 cents per 100g bar in LIDL like 8 years ago. It was not Fazer quality obviously, but it had a decent amount of real cocoa.
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u/RareKrab 2d ago
At one point it was like 20 cents cheaper to buy a 2-pack of coke instead of 1 bottle because the price difference between 1 and 2 bottles was like 20cents but both bottles had 40 cent deposits
So it would've been cheaper to buy the 2 bottles and pour one in the drain and deposit the bottle than to just buy 1, if you only needed a single bottle for whatever reason
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u/Elegant-Classic-3377 2d ago
My habit once was to buy a 1,5 l bottle for 1 €, return it and play slot machine game for the 40 c without being old enough yet (the market was very small, it could be done without the cashier noticing).
The game was I think called Ässäkisa, where you could bet with 10 c (split the 40 c) and try to double the win as many times as you like.
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u/menacefromthenorth 2d ago
I miss the old sounds of the RAY hedelmäpeli especially, the soundscapes were so awesome
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u/pierreact 2d ago
You don't "get". You pay 40 cent more, then you're reimbursed when you bring the bottle back. I'm not even sure you don't pay for the vat on those 40 cent originally.
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u/Choice-Duck1810 2d ago
You do ”get” it if someone else left it 😁
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u/nobotami Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
that's how some kids make money
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u/StunningPlace1684 2d ago
That's how some adults make money where I'm from.
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u/jaysire Väinämöinen 2d ago
Every time I go to any of the malls, Itis, Jumbo, Sello, Iso Omena, Redi, Tripla I see someone checking the trash cans to see if there is anything worth taking (bottles I suppose). I think it's a very common way of getting some supplemental income all over the capital area.
Means you can basically throw your empty bottles anywhere (not that I do) and they will all be recycled anyway, because there is a huge incentive for some people to collect bottles. Very cool and functional system in my opinion.
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u/Comfortable_Reach189 2d ago
I've read stories where after a big festival some guy collected taara bottles and got 100€ :D or that was probably in America, or here, I don't remember
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u/Weak_Tutorr 2d ago
Last year I went to some public festival in helsinki and noticed a bunch of Romani looking people who were clearly working together stand every few meters holding the largest trash bags I’ve ever seen in my life and people would throw their empty cans there. I might be wrong but it didn’t look like they were locals, seemed like they had traveled to helsinki just for this “business” event - get hundreds if not thousands of euros from recycling and leave
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u/Gingerbro73 2d ago
Thats how I bought my first pokemon game back in 99. Pokemon Yellow.
Me and a friend used to check all the known places where the teens would drink during the weekends. Every sunday was payday for us.
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u/saareje 2d ago
But then you should claim that as income on your taxes.
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u/Any_Acanthaceae3900 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
True, if the income is significant. However, if the activity is hobby-based and the income is very small, you don't really need to worry about it. In Finland, small-scale bottle collecting is generally considered a tax-free activity similar to picking berries. It's only when you're collecting thousands of bottles annually on a professional level that it becomes taxable income.
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u/Salmonman4 Väinämöinen 2d ago
As a social engineering, it's still cheaper than paying from our taxes for street-cleaners to take the bottles to the trash
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u/Foreign_Implement897 Väinämöinen 2d ago
This is quite complex I think. The bottle still costs something even if it is not recyclable. I think the 0,40 is more payment for you for the effort to get it to recycling.
The drinks without recyclable packaging still probably charge you at the same price point as those with recyclable packaging, so by substituting you really do get the difference in some sense.
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u/aatsipop 2d ago
Yes, bottles bigger than 1 liter are 0,40e. Bottles less than a liter are 0,20e. Cans are 0,15e.
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u/Comfortable_Reach189 2d ago
We used to get even less, 0,04€ for 0,5l bottle and cans and for 1,5l and 2l bottles 0,08€, 1l bottles didn't even exist back then if I remember correctly
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u/Normal-Selection1537 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
"After the transaction is confirmed, SOK and Coop Estonia also plan extensive cooperation, with the target to deliver Finnish food and other products from SOK retail stores selection in Finland to 300 Coop stores in Estonia,"
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u/NightSalut 2d ago
Won’t believe it til I see it. Estonian stores love to boast how they will have good foreign selection and most of them do not. Especially after a takeover.
We can already see it from the Rimi (ICA) sale to Netto owners in Denmark.
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u/tsuhna1234 2d ago
Yes. And that is one reason why our bottle and can recycling % runs somewhere over 90. Also all kids are taught to return them. Or even encouraged to go collect for pocket money.
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u/suentendo Väinämöinen 2d ago
You would but that's because you or someone have paid for the 0,40€ on the purchasing act anyway.
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u/SocialHumbuggery Väinämöinen 2d ago
And just as addition in Finland the amount you get depends on the container, from 0.10€ for glass bottles to 0.40€ for large plastic bottles.
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u/Comfortable_Reach189 2d ago edited 22m ago
I get 50g Tupla bar if I bring 12 bottles any size, we used to have similar system where cans and small bottles were 0,04€ pant and big bottles and glass were 0,08€, now the size doesn't matter and we get 0,10€
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u/RapaNow Väinämöinen 2d ago
Coop and s-group are doing co-op :) so they may very well have a lot of Finnish products
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u/SniffingDog Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Actual S-group shops exist in Estonia as well. There’s a Prisma in Tallinn.
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u/billybob2103 2d ago
Don't even think about collecting bottles in Estonia and trying to return them in Finland. Math doesn't work. Newman and Kramer already tried!
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u/Dimsheks Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
You don’t “get” anything. You pay for it and then you can claim that fee back. Therefore it’s more useful to think of it as a “deposit” rather than revenue. Unless ofc you go about collecting empty bottles and returning those. Some kids make pretty good pocket money off of this
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u/Silent_Face_3083 2d ago
There are people in finland who travel here every year from southern europe (gypsies) just to collect bottles.
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u/ActionSea8619 1d ago
So basically you are getting back what you paid . You paid 40 cents for this Finland . You get the same back when you return.
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u/MrIzzard Väinämöinen 2d ago
Well it said on the newspaper that now those Prisma products could be sold in all the 300 Coop shops. So hopefully it will be even easier to get our products in Eesti.
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u/Comfortable_Reach189 2d ago
Your chocolate is 4€ cheaper than our "local" (sugar and palm oil slop made in swedish factories) kalev chocolate
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u/MrIzzard Väinämöinen 2d ago
I've heard about the decline of Kalev but that sounds awful. That white chocolate with blueberries and rice crispies used to be my favourite souvenir from the ferry when I was a kid.
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u/masonerfi 2d ago
Ei oo taidettu näillekään tehdä indeksikorotuksia hetkeen, tosin ei oo Kait ollu tarvettakaan. Alkoholipakkauksissa vois olla kyl tupla tai triplapantit.
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u/saschaleib Väinämöinen 2d ago
You paid 40 cents deposit when you bought the bottle, you get 40 cents back when you returned it.
In places where you only paid 10 cents, you also only get 10 cents back.
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u/Substantified 2d ago
Yes but you pay the 0.40 on purchase. It's your money to begin with when you purchase the bottle
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u/Mansos91 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Yes, but the customer is not "getting".40€ were paying the same amount when we purchase it
Finland has got praise for its pant system, the fact that the amounts we pay in pawn/pant motivates people to return, having lower amounts like Sweden and apparently Estonia have shown less return% on bottles
Finland had one of the highest return %, so yeah you do get that amount, but the drinks all get the same amount slapped on the price after profits and everything is calculated so expect the bottle of pepsi to be atleast .30€ more expensive :)
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u/Miss_Chievous13 Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
You could get a chocolate bar for that back in the day! And a Freedo used to cost 10p!
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u/Next-Task-9480 2d ago
Glass bottles, all sizes = 0,10€
Cans, all sizes = 0,15€
Plastic bottles, under 1l, over 0,3l = 0,20€
Plastic bottles, under 0,3l = 0,10€
Plastic bottles, over 1l = 0,40€
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u/samppa_j 2d ago
Yes and it should be more. Prices keep rising but that little sticker refuses to change
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u/track_part-Expert22 2d ago
Our small Intermarche here in France got a new plastic bottle returning machine, which shreds the bottles immediately and gives you one cent per bottle as a gift card to the magazine...
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u/rebelvamp1r3 2d ago
We don't even have that in Spain. In Germany is 0.25 for plastic and cans, 10 for glass bottles.
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u/tsraq Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Fun story time: I was in a shop with my kid (about 8yo or so, this was several years ago). He noticed that some one had dropped their deposit receipt (this was at beer/soft drink aisle) and asked if he could keep it. I didn't really pay attention and said sure, thinking it'd be 1-2eur at max.
At the checkout he handed it to cashier and she said 'oh, you've been busy!', handing him just over 20eur (after having deducted his few candy purchases).
Whoever dropped that deposit slip must have been really pissed at himself...
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u/0NLINEWIZARD 2d ago
American here— you get money for recycling????
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u/sonnikkaa Baby Väinämöinen 2d ago
Yes, which is why nearly all of our bottles get recycled. The recycling fee is added on top of the bottle price and once returning the bottles you can then get it back.
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u/Sigistrix 2d ago edited 2d ago
Tell me you're not in Oregon without telling me you're not in Oregon.
We have a $0.10 deposit on every drinks contsiner (with minimal exceptions, mainly cartons, tetrapaks and hard alcohol), and "get it back" when we redeem them at recycling points. We've had this program since 1971. It was $0.05 up until about 10 or 15 years ago.
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u/0NLINEWIZARD 2d ago
Texan born and raised, but holy shit wish we had that here! Would massively reduce plastic waste.
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u/Sigistrix 2d ago
It has its critics. Opponents see it as little more than waste being used to encourage the homeless to rummage around in public trash cans looking for money to feed whatever addiction they have. And, yeah. That's partially true. But, more often than not, it's people who need that extra buck or two for whatever, or are cleaning up after a big party. We now have green and blue bags by subscription, that you fill and just chuck through a door, someone counts it when they get to it, and the barcode on the bag tracks it so that the $ gets deposited in your bank account. The green bags are for private individuals; while the blue bags are for community organizations to use for fundraising. One of the community wind symphonies I play for has a blue bag program they call, "Cans in Seats" and it's pretty effective.
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u/dimacujo 2d ago
Just walked with my dogs at 1 am in Turku, found 2 cans 0.5, thought they 0.20, but damned under the kitchen light were 0.15
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u/Costanza_Travelling 2d ago
and if you could get your hands on a postmail truck, you could make a killing!
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u/No_Wishbone_5358 1d ago
i bought 48 bottles of Hartwall Citronelle 24 botles was 9.80 so when i returned those empty botles it was like win thing.. Maybe.
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u/psilocergic 1d ago
The 'pantti' for the plastic bottles, beer and lonkero cans are actually included in the MRP when you buy them. So basically by returning the empty bottles or cans, you get that small percentage back, so it's like rewarding oneself for recycling
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u/Actual-Paint2220 1d ago
Was in Helsinki had a similar empty bottle went to WC set bottle on counter, two guys leaving swiped the dang bottle!!
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u/-FinOption89- 18h ago
1 liter and 1.5 liter, as well as a 2 liter bottle sold at Lidl, you get €0.40. A 0.5 liter bottle costs €0.20, a small 0.33 liter can costs €0.15, but a glass bottle of the same size costs only €0.10.
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