Retail, Horeca and consumers

Ekopullo’s refillable glass bottles and Palpa’s one way glass bottles recycled as material should always be returned separately. There are separate transport units for the bottles in the both systems. This ensures that return locations receive a refund for the deposits correctly and prevents the mix-up of packages in different deposit-based systems. If the bottles are mixed up, this weakens recycling in both systems and causes extra costs.

Only Ekopullo members and their logistics service providers are entitled to use Ekopullo’s transport units for beverage deliveries and to collect empty units back into use. In retail stores, Ekopullo transport units may only be used in the beverage department for the sales presentation of beverage packages.

The labelling and marking of transport units in production and logistics must be performed so that all labelling, markings and stickers can be removed when washing the units. Incorrectly marked transport units will need to be withdrawn from use prematurely. Ekopullo members and logistics service providers must comply with the marking instructions for Ekopullo transport units. 

Consumers can return the refillable brown 0.33-litre glass bottles in Ekopullo’s system to any reverse vending machine (RVM). The plastic crates for refillable bottles can be returned to stores that sell Ekopullo’s refillable bottles. 

Consumers will also be refunded for their deposits for Ekopullo bottles without a label, as the reverse vending machines recognize the bottles in the Ekopullo system based on the shape of the bottle. 

For the time being, consumers can also return Ekopullo’s discarded refillable 0.5-litre and 1.0-litre glass bottles and 0.5-liter and 1.5-litre PET bottles (hard plastic bottles) to the reverse vending machines, as long as they are intact and recognizable by shape.

Diagram: Reuse, repair and recycling of bottles and transport units

The Ekopullo transport units are only used for the beverage industry’s beverage deliveries to retail and HoReCa customers. The return locations do not refund deposits to consumers for plastic trays, for example.