All in all, it’s a net benefit. I remember the time before this system, and you had drink cans littered around everywhere. Ever since the system is in place, I can count the amount of littered cans (e.g. cans that are too crushed to be returned) on maybe one hand
Not really. It’s complicated.
Basically all of the money is being shuffled between importers/manufacturers, stores and consumers.
Germany has about 95-98% return rate for the bottles (mainly because it’s somewhat lucrative to collect them). So very little money is left over.
There’s a company called DPG that is responsible to make sure that no part of the system is profiting of it unfairly
Germany wikipedia (annoyingly only available in german) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfand_auf_Einweggetränkebehälter_in_Deutschland
All in all, it’s a net benefit. I remember the time before this system, and you had drink cans littered around everywhere. Ever since the system is in place, I can count the amount of littered cans (e.g. cans that are too crushed to be returned) on maybe one hand