Saturday, March 13

Finland has a bottle return system that works well. Every bottle or beer can has a price on the side, which you get back when you return it. This results in everyone recycling their bottles and some people scouring the streets for stray bottles to recycle.

Lidl used to have their own bottle collection system, which irritated a number of people, including us. Lidl would only accept the (non-standard) Lidl bottles and everyone else would accept everything else except bottles from Lidl. A few years ago, they relented and joined the standard Finnish system. Now Lidl accepts any Finnish bottle and every other retailer excepts bottles from Lidl.

Recently I noticed another innovation from the wacky people at Lidl. You can now opt to give them the money from your recycling, instead of keeping it yourself. How do you do this? You obey the instructions and choose to gamble with your payment. The two machines both say “Voit voittaa tyhullä pulloillasi jopa 10 000 euroa!” which translates into English as “You can win up to 10,000 euros with your empty bottles!”

Lidl have managed to combine two Finnish obsessions, recycling and gambling, into one money-making venture. It makes me smile out loud every time we walk into the supermarket.