In Germany a man is being accused of defrauding plastic bottle recycling machines, netting over one million Euros in the process.
The country has had a system in place since 2003 whereby every bottle purchased carries a deposit, which is returned to you when you take the bottle back to the machine.
Certain plastics are not reusable, and the bottles are therefore shredded upon being returned. It is alleged the accused was able to disable the machine’s shredding process, extract the bottles and re-scan them. This allowed him to repeatedly collect the ‘deposit’ allocated for the bottles.
This scheme is due to be introduced into the UK later this year, hopefully there are lessons learnt from the way criminal gangs have been able to manipulate the system on the continent.
