Returning beverage containers to shops 'will improve customer service'

BCRS Malta, which is running the new beverage container recycling scheme, is insisting that having retailers collect returned beverage containers as part of the scheme is being introduced to have a "good level of customer service".

The company was replying to a letter in Saturday's Times of Malta by  Mellieħa shopkeeper Dane Cauchi who claimed the obligation to accept returned beverage containers as part of a new recycling scheme is going to overburden small business owners.

BCRS Malta also said the obligation of the manual collection has been enshrined in the law regulating the scheme when it was first passed in 2019.

The scheme being run by BCRS Malta includes an obligation by shop owners to accept empty bottles from their customers if that particular beverage is sold in their shop. 

In his letter, Cauchi said that throughout negotiations, the RVM (reverse vending machines) network was the only way for customers to return their bottles and that grocery outlets and confectionaries were never mentioned as points of collection. 

He also said that previously, business owners had not been informed of the requirement to accept returns manually at their shops.

“My opposition to this...