Nearly €2 million worth of vouchers held by people who deposited their bottles and cans in BCRS reverse vending machines have not been exchanged yet, and some have expired.

Energy and Environment Minister Miriam Dalli said in parliament that 403,539,980 containers were collected between November 12, 2022, when the deposit scheme was introduced, and September 23 of this year.

That included 357,443,632 containers deposited in reverse vending machines and 46,096,348 collected manually from shops and catering establishments.

€35,202,734 worth of vouchers were issued, of which €1,978,429 had not been exchanged up to September. The vouchers have a 12-month expiry date and a considerable number of those vouchers may still be in time for use, the minister said.

She was replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ian Vassallo. 

The Beverage Container Refund Scheme was set up to encourage the return of single-use beverage containers by applying a refundable deposit on the sale of beverages.

A 10c deposit is added to the purchase price of the beverage. That deposit is charged to retailers at the wholesale stage who subsequently transfer it to consumers.

Consumers then recoup their deposits by returning the empty beverage containers to a retailer or a reverse vending machine.  

BCRS says on its website that it has installed over 300 reverse vending machines across supermarkets, major beverage retail outlets and within Public Recycling Hubs around all of Malta and Gozo.