Carrefour Polska summarized the results of the largest deposit system test in Poland

Carrefour Polska started preparing for the implementation of the deposit system in December 2020, when we started accepting returnable glass bottles in our Warsaw stores without having to show proof of purchase and paying customers the full deposit in payment vouchers. In the following months, our chain extended this pilot of manual collection of glass packaging to all its stores in Poland. To date, Carrefour has already accepted over 40 million glass bottles, which means that the return rate of this type of packaging is twice as high as that of their sales in our chain stores.

This test was extended in January 2023, when, as one of the first retail chains in Poland, together with EKOPunkt Packaging Recovery Organization, we additionally launched our own deposit system based on automatic packaging collection in 10 selected hyper- and supermarkets in the Silesian Voivodeship. In the network of bottle dispensers located next to our stores, we have started accepting used plastic and aluminum beverage containers from customers, paying 15 cents for each item. Customers receive these funds in the form of e-vouchers, which they can use to immediately pay for their purchases in a given Carrefour store. This initiative met with great interest from the inhabitants of the province. Silesia, which confirms the collection of over 15 million packages during the 12 months of the test. At the same time, as a company, we paid our customers a record amount of over PLN 2 million in vouchers, which allowed them to shop cheaper in our network. The success of this pilot proves the readiness of Poles to adopt and support the upcoming deposit system in Poland. However, Carrefour does not stop at testing the system in the Silesian Voivodeship and plans to launch similar initiatives in other Polish cities in the coming months.