By the end of September, more than HUF 57 million had already been collected for pediatric purposes through the REPont machines, and we will reach the 90 percent reuse and return rate very quickly.
The public can support the Heim Pál and Bethesda children's hospitals as well as the Semmelweis children's clinic for a year with these "fifty HUF donations". The CEO of MOHU MOL Hulladékzágólski Zrt. spoke about the current state of the redemption system, as well as the billions of bottles still waiting to be collected.
While the debate is going on right now about whether it is legitimate and/or absurd to punish the homeless if they collect fifty-forint bottles from public bins, MOHU, the state company responsible for collecting them, recently announced that by the end of September, more than 57 million forints was collected for pediatric purposes through the REPont machines.
The fact that after a few months we reached the point where 6 million bottles are redeemed per day, and on certain days over 8 million bottles, was absolutely surpassed by all our previous hopes. If we continue like this, we will very soon reach the 90 percent reuse and recovery rate
Zsolt Pethő, CEO of MOHU MOL Waste Management Zrt., said to Economx At the same time, according to him, they were sure from the beginning that the amount offered for charity would amount to several tens of millions of forints, and that it would really be a meaningful help, no matter who would be the beneficiary of this donation.
We tried to choose a goal that society can easily identify with, because it can affect many people, but a poll within the company also confirmed that pediatrics should be the beneficiary of our charity program in the first year. The three hospitals were selected on the basis of a tender, recalled the CEO, adding:
the institutions will finally receive the amount collected by the first of July in one sum.
And how much will it be?
If we take into account that HUF 57 million was collected after the quarter, as well as the fact that donations show a constantly increasing trend, I think that we will be able to distribute an amount well over HUF 200 million in the summer
- emphasized Zsolt Pethő, anticipating that there could even be developments that could be used to divide the recovered amount between personal use and donation.
The CEO of MOHU said in relation to the DRS system that, according to general international experience, the first three to six months are spent correcting the system's childhood illnesses, he said. This system is new to everyone. New for manufacturers who need to register their products. It's new for the shops and businesses where these machines have been installed, since the machines have to be emptied and cleaned, and you have to report if something goes wrong, and of course it's also new for the residents, who were waiting for a learning phase. However, after three months, the number of complaints from stores and customers decreased significantly, he added.
For the time being, they only have estimates of the percentage of bottles that are put into circulation that will be collected, because they know exactly how many of them were produced with a quarterly phase delay. At the same time, the goal is to
MOHU collects 90 percent of the 3.3 billion beverage cans, bottles, and bottles annually.
"We are fully prepared for this," answered Zsolt Pethő when asked if they could handle this billion-dollar item. All of the stores over 400 square meters already have a vending machine, but stores are constantly registering for the manual redemption system as well, and they are also installing vending machines as needed, we found out. It is a very important argument that
so far, customers have "withdrawn" HUF 17 billion from REPont machines in the form of store vouchers, which then appeared in store traffic.
However, the key to recovery is that these products are actually recycled, with aluminum and glass this happens almost 100 percent, but with plastic this is still a problem. can be reused nine or ten times.
This is basically not our competence, but I think there are also efforts in this direction on the part of manufacturers - he answered our suggestion that it would be best if the amount of packaging material purchased were reduced. The CEO of MOHU added to this that according to the guidelines of the European Union, the multi-way system must be developed, i.e. that a bottle should not be used only once, but several times, and there are already emerging trends that the PET bottle itself must be replaced by some kind of to other packaging material.
"I agree with all the ideas that are progress in terms of environmental protection, and until then our redemption system will be good so that as long as single-use bottles are distributed, we can collect as many of them as possible"
- He told.
Featured image: Presenter Attila Till, the ambassador of MOHU, shows the voucher received from the return machine, REpoint, at the press conference held at the Príma store in Biatorbágy on August 13, 2024. The briefing was held on the occasion that the one hundred millionth bottle was redeemed within the framework of the mandatory redemption fee system (DRS) in Hungary. MTI/Noémi Bruzák
