EC Report: implementing European refund system for metal beverage cans not appropriate

The Final Report for the study ‘Options and Feasibility of a European Refund System for Metal Beverage Cans’ is now available on the European Commission’s website.
Overall, the analysis suggests that the magnitude of the problem caused by a lack of interoperability of systems is small in relation to the total quantity of material being handled as waste metal beverage packaging across the EU. Moreover, the vast majority of the issues arise in a small number of countries. Therefore, implementing any EU-wide measure in response to what is essentially a localised problem seems inappropriate to its scale
Besides, the EU-wide Deposit Refund System (DRS), is one where, in the central case, the costs are likely to exceed benefits by some margin.
There are ongoing bilateral discussions between Germany and Denmark, with both parties seeking to resolve the interoperability issues. This seems the appropriate level at which to address the principle source of the problems which arise (Final Report European Commission).