Once a deposit-refund system is implemented in Belarus, the percentage of returned containers should reach at least 80%, BelTA learned from Anatoly Shagun, a representative of the government institution in charge of coordinating the management of secondary material resources.

The official noted that the new approach will at least double the amount of containers Belarusians will take back to shops. The percentage is expected to reach at least 80%. “Such a system was introduced in Lithuania in 2016. Container return percentage reached 92-96% in Lithuania last year,” Anatoly Shagun said.

The deposit-refund system is expected to apply to PET bottles, glass bottles and jars, aluminum and tinned iron cans – in other words, all the staple containers used to sell beverages in Belarus these days, except for milk containers. The capacity of the Belarusian market is estimated at 1.8 billion containers per annum. The system's deployment will require two years.

“In essence it will be something like what we had in the Soviet Union when handing in glass containers was popular – when a person buys some beverage, he or she leaves a deposit, which he or she can collect by handing in the empty container,” the official said. The scheme is expected to have a negligible impact on retail prices and a massive impact on container recycling rates.