“In Aarhus, we had a growing problem with waste. When we started looking for a solution, we discovered that 48 per cent of our waste was takeaway packaging,” says Simon Rossau, Project Manager for Clean City, Technology and Environment in Aarhus Municipality.
Eleven different companies submitted bids to carry out a pilot project in collaboration with the municipality, and in the end it was the Norwegian company Tomra that was awarded the contract. The company shares the municipality’s vision for the city and presented the best reuse solution, says Rossau.
A new type of deposit return system
Eventually, the municipality and Tomra were joined by several more companies supplying takeaway food and drink, and in January 2024 they launched an entirely new system for the reuse of packaging in Aarhus.
Operations Manager at Tomra, René Jørgensen, explains the deposit return scheme as follows:
“When you buy a coffee in a reusable cup from one of our partners, you pay a NOK 5 deposit. When you have finished your coffee, you can scan a QR code to see a map of our reverse vending machines. You then place the cup in the reverse vending machine and scan your card to receive your NOK 5 back.
The next step in the cycle is that a Tomra employee empties the machine and takes the cups to the cleaning facility, Jørgensen explains.
– This is where we wash the cups and carry out bacteria tests before packing them and delivering them back to our partners. That is how the cycle continues.
Beyond all expectations
Since the project was launched, Tomra has distributed more than 600,000 reusable cups and reduced the amount of plastic packaging sent for incineration by ten tonnes.
“There is no doubt that we are reducing the amount of waste in our city through this project,” says Rossau.
He refers to the nearly 100,000 cups that Aarhus municipality removed from the river last year. This year, they have only seen one of their reusable cups among the waste. Rosseau says that the results, as well as the feedback from both consumers and partners, have exceeded all expectations.
“They appreciate that Aarhus is doing something differently,” he says.
Aarhus Street Food has been the main partner for the project, and bar manager Stephen Harris claims that the response has been 99.9 per cent positive.
“The customers are extremely satisfied. They do not see the deposit scheme as an obstacle. Both employees and customers feel that they are doing something good and contributing to the green transition,” he explains.
Enormous potential
Project Manager Rossau believes that introducing the deposit return scheme to other cities is a no-brainer.
“In an international context, this project has enormous potential. We are in dialogue with cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo. To put it into perspective, Tokyo has 40,000 coffee shops, while Aarhus has only around 100.”
He believes the threshold for introducing this in Scandinavian cities is lower, as we are already used to deposit return schemes for plastic bottles. In Norway, more than 90 per cent of those sold are returned for a deposit.
“We use far, far too many packaging products, and we can easily reduce this by using the system we have built here in Aarhus.”
