#124 – How 50 Groszy Cleaned a Woodland
- Adam Pawel Pietruszewski
- 39 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Do you see anything special in the picture below?
Probably not. It looks like an ordinary, quite clean and nice patch of woodland. Just a few months ago, however, it looked quite different. A little woodland where drunks hang out, full of empty beer cans and plastic bottles.
They're all gone now - not the drunks, only the cans and bottles. A nice, unexpected, at least to me, consequence of the Deposit Return System, which was rolled out across Poland at the beginning of 2026.
I wish I had a picture from last year to compare, to show that real magic happened in that small woodland. Magic or a smart nudge? Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their fascinating book argue that nudges can support societies by helping people effortlessly make the right choices [1]. Thaler and Sunstein define a nudge as an aspect of the decision-making process that predictably changes people's behaviour without restricting their choices. Fifty groszy (about €0.10) isn't much, yet it's enough to make discarded bottles and cans suddenly valuable, as evidenced by the little woodland near my home.
The early results are very promising, although the process was slow and painful. EU regulation on packaging and packaging waste includes 88 recitals, 71 articles, 13 annexes and 71 definitions. It is a heavy architecture for companies that mainly need to know what is really expected of them. The EU's intentions are clearly good and focused on sustainability. The regulatory frameworks, however, often become overloaded and impractical. This highly overengineered legal act covers only plastic and metal packages, glass is not covered for the reasons I don't clearly understand. However, the Polish deposit return system will cover selected glass bottles by the end of 2028.
Large retailers (stores over 200 square metres) are required to accept returns. Most supermarket chains have installed automated collection machines. The queues that often form in front of them are a striking reminder of how many bottles and cans we consume every day.
Will the deposit return system eventually encourage people to buy fewer bottled drinks and reach for tap water more often? Time will tell.
For now, I'm simply enjoying walks through a woodland that has quietly become much cleaner.
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References and Notes
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2021). Nudge: The final edition. Penguin.