Are Poles becoming convinced of the deposit system? The numbers don’t lie

October 1 will mark one year since the launch of the deposit system in Poland. Under this scheme, a deposit of PLN 50 is added for drinks in plastic bottles and metal cans. For drinks in reusable glass bottles, there is a deposit of PLN 1. After drinking the drink, we can collect the deposit by returning the package to the store (without a receipt and to any store).

From the latest one – conducted in August and September this year. – a PBS survey commissioned by the National Deposit System Zwrotka, one of the system operators, shows that three-quarters of respondents already use the system. In the previous spring edition of the survey, just over 60 percent said they used the system. respondents. The percentage of people who are just planning to start using it dropped from 19 to 6 percent.

Almost half of Poles have a positive opinion about the deposit system

The data quoted by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna show that packaging is most often returned by the youngest respondents, aged 18-24 (86%), and least often by people aged 25-34 and 35-44 (71% each).

– Half a year ago, we saw, first of all, a very high readiness of Poles to use the system. Today, the data shows the next stage of this change – more and more people have experience, and for some of them, returning packaging has simply become routine. This is an important change because the maturity of the system does not depend solely on the number of people who have used it at least once. The key is whether the consumer wants to come back and whether he or she can incorporate return into his or her everyday behavior. The next challenge is not just to encourage the first return, but to create such an experience that occasional behavior can naturally become a permanent habit. – emphasizes Zygmunt Ochał, vice-president of Zwrotka.

The survey shows that 45% of people have a positive opinion about the deposit system. Poles. This is a significant increase compared to the previous edition of the survey, when the percentage of positive opinions reached 34%. This increase does not mean that we do not notice problems in the functioning of the system. The results show specific barriers related to, among others: with vending machines, queues and convenience of use. The authors of the report emphasize, however, that today these are primarily challenges related to the quality of experience, and not the acceptance of the system itself.

Only 7 percent respondents claim that using the system is complicated. In this group, 74 percent indicates problems with the operation of the machine (e.g. not accepting bottles), 66 percent queues, and 52 percent time-consuming of the entire process.

How much do we recover?

Poles most often recover between PLN 20 and 50 per month (25%), although a significant group (61%) admits that they immediately spend the deposit on purchases in the same store.

The nationwide study “Feedback 2026. The year of the deposit system in Poland” was carried out by the PBS Research Agency on behalf of Zwrotka. The study was conducted using the CAWI method on a nationwide sample of 1,062 people. The questions concerned the entire system, not just Zwrotka’s customers.