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CircularJourney

Western Europe — 2028

Germany

Germany has run packaging producer responsibility longer than almost anywhere, together with a deposit return scheme for beverage containers. Long-running systems reveal failure modes that new ones have not reached yet.
Future missionUnder consideration for a later phase of the programme.

Research question

After three decades, what does producer responsibility actually deliver, and where does it leak?

Written before the mission, and published unchanged. Findings are assessed against this question rather than the question being rewritten to fit the findings.

Research scope

Thirty years of producer responsibility

What we want to understand

  1. 01How the packaging scheme is financed, governed and audited.
  2. 02What the deposit return scheme costs per container recovered.
  3. 03How reported recycling rates are calculated, and at which point in the chain.
  4. 04What share of collected packaging is genuinely reprocessed domestically.
  5. 05Which design changes producers actually made in response.
Region
Western Europe
Research lens
01 · Advanced systemsWhat has been built here, and what makes it work?
Research theme
Extended producer responsibility and deposit return
Field research
Planned for 2028
Framework themes
policyrecyclingcircular business modelseconomicscircular business modelsindia applicability
Relevant SDGs
SDG 9SDG 12

Cities

Germany

Berlin

Long-running packaging producer responsibility and deposit return, observable in ordinary retail.

Future mission

Missions

No mission scheduled

This country is on the roadmap but no mission has been planned in detail yet.

Findings

No findings yet

Field research in Germany is future mission. This section stays empty until there is something we have actually seen. The questions above are what we will be asking.

What India could take from Germany

Assessment pending

Any judgement about transfer to India would be speculation until the system has been seen working, and its costs and dependencies understood. Anything published here will be labelled as a proposal until a pilot reports.

What Germany could take from India

Nothing has been researched yet, so nothing is claimed. These are the parts of India’s experience we expect to be worth putting in front of practitioners here, and what we will ask them about.

  • Producer responsibility where much of the producer base is small and unregistered.
  • What a deposit system has to become when the retail network is largely informal.

Read the reasoning on why this is a two-way journey.

Case studies

BerlinPlanned

Packaging producer responsibility over three decades, Germany

One of the longest-running extended producer responsibility schemes for packaging, alongside a deposit return scheme for beverage containers.

packagingplastic

Film and clips

Nothing filmed yet

Filming follows the field visit. Clip subjects are planned in advance and listed on the clips page.

Notices

Organizations and experts

Directory not yet open

We list an organization only once it has agreed to a public listing, and a person only with their consent. Outreach for this mission is under way; entries appear here as permissions come back.Take part