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Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark is instructed to start the new factory by process operator Mikkel Nielsen. Left is Thomas Dalsgaard, Chairman of Dansk Retursystem. (Photo credit: Stadler)

New Plant

New STADLER automated plant for Dansk Retursystem begins operation in Denmark’s successful beverage packaging return system

Altshausen, Germany

STADLER has completed commissioning of a new beverage packaging sorting plant it designed and built for Dansk Retursystem in Taastrup, Denmark. Full handover is scheduled for April, at the end of the final one-month trial period.

The inauguration ceremony of the plant, held on 10 March, was hosted by Dansk Retursystem Chief Executive Officer Lars Krejberg Petersen and attended by guests of honor Frederick, Crown Prince of Denmark and Lea Wermelin, Minister of the Environment.

The plant will process the PET bottles and aluminium cans collected throughout the country via the return system, producing bales of PET bottles and aluminium cans for recycling. With a capacity of 110 m 3 per hour, it is expected to process around 55% of the country’s recycled cans and PET bottles for a total of more than 25,000 tonnes of material a year, working 16 hours a day on two shifts, for 300 days a year. 

A successful private-public collaboration for a circular economy 

Dansk Retursystem is a non-profit company owned by Danish breweries and regulated by statutory order under the Danish Environmental Protection Act. Founded in 2000, it operates the country’s deposit and return system for beverage bottles and cans with the aim of recycling as many as possible into new ones. All profits are reinvested into the company to improve the system and ensure that the high return rate is maintained or raised even further. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency monitors Dansk Retursystem’s activities and periodically reviews its operation to renew its exclusive right to operate the country’s deposit and return system for a new term.

Dansk Retursystem is an excellent example of a successful collaboration between the private and public sectors. Its business model creates a circular economy that involves the entire chain: beverage packaging manufacturers, breweries, retailers, consumers, transport companies, and sorting recycling companies. Dansk Retursystem collects bottles and cans from reverse vending machines found at 3000 stores across the country, from retailers, shops, offices, cafés and restaurants, or through the “pantstation” deposit return banks located in 12 cities. It sorts all the collected packaging into glass and plastic bottles and aluminium cans, which are recycled into new packaging. The result of this extremely effective system is that 9 out of 10 bottles marked for deposit are returned and recycled, with very little waste in the process.

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