--- title: "From Corner Café To Reverse Vending Machine: What SA’s Old Deposit Habit Can Teach The New DRS" description: Explore how South Africa's old deposit habits can inform the new Deposit Return Scheme, enhancing recycling through modern incentives and collaboration. --- [WastePlan Blog](https://blog.wasteplan.co.za/blog) # [From Corner Café To Reverse Vending Machine: What SA’s Old Deposit Habit Can Teach The New DRS](https://blog.wasteplan.co.za/blog/from-corner-café-to-reverse-vending-machine-what-sas-old-deposit-habit-can-teach-the-new-drs) Written by [Bertie Lourens](https://blog.wasteplan.co.za/blog/author/bertie-lourens) | Sep 30, 2026, 10:00:00 AM ### It wasn’t called a Deposit Return Scheme or framed as sustainability. It was just how things worked. Companies such as Coca-Cola and SAB had run voluntary systems for refillable glass (and later some PET) since the late 1940s. *Return rates stayed high because the incentive was immediate, the network was dense, and the packaging itself held real value.* The local café counter was the original reverse-vending machine. ## From Corner Café To Reverse Vending Machine: What SA’s Old Deposit Habit Can Teach The New DRS   If you grew up in South Africa in the 1970s, 80s or even early 90s, the routine was almost automatic. You finished the cold drink, rinsed the glass bottle, and took it back to the corner café or bottle store. A few cents came off the next one, or you got a straight refund. The bottles clinked into crates and disappeared back into the system.   It wasn’t called a Deposit Return Scheme or framed as sustainability. It was just how things worked.   Companies such as Coca-Cola and SAB had run voluntary systems for refillable glass (and later some PET) since the late 1940s. *Return rates stayed high because the incentive was immediate, the network was dense, and the packaging itself held real value.* The local café counter was the original reverse-vending machine.   **The quiet narrowing of a working system**   That model never completely disappeared. You can still find refundable quarts for beer, and some refillable PET soft-drink bottles still carry a deposit.   But the everyday habit eroded as cheap single-use plastics and one-way packaging took over. Convenience won. Retail formats changed. *The economics of light, disposable containers made more sense for producers and retailers than managing a return fleet of heavy glass.*   The formal return network thinned out. What the system no longer prioritised, the informal sector quietly absorbed. Waste pickers and buy-back centres became the practical recovery mechanism for beverage containers. This particular form of recycling didn’t vanish – it simply stopped being the default for most people.   **What’s different this time**   South Africa is now looking at Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) again, but the context has shifted dramatically.   Under the [draft National Waste Management Strategy 2026](https://www.sustainabilitymea.com/south-africa-moves-to-modernize-packaging-waste-policy-with-draft-nwms-2026/), the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment signals that mandatory DRS can be imposed as a corrective measure on underperforming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) streams. Where collection and recycling targets stagnate, a deposit becomes a policy tool to drive higher recovery rates.   Pilots are already under way. [North-West University has launched reverse-vending machines](https://news.nwu.ac.za/nwu-launches-first-reverse-vending-machine-major-sustainability-milestone) as part of a broader sustainability effort, testing automated returns for beverage containers. These machines sit a long way from the old café counter. They are designed for multi-material single-use packaging, digital tracking, and national-scale reporting rather than a neighbourhood refill loop.   The new system also has to operate in a landscape the old one never faced: - An informal sector that already recovers a significant share of beverage containers and is being formalised through the South African Waste Picker Registration System and [mandatory EPR service fees](https://blog.wasteplan.co.za/blog/understanding-extended-producer-responsibility-epr-in-the-south-african-context). - Buy-back centres that are being digitised so payments can be cashless and auditable. - EPR compliance requirements that demand accurate data from producers, retailers and hospitality businesses. - A wider set of waste streams beyond packaging (including textiles, construction and demolition waste) that now carry significantly higher diversion targets.   **Practical questions worth asking**   Any modern DRS has to take into account a complex mix of materials and stakeholders, and designing a workable system means confronting a few tensions head-on.   1. How high should the return fee be? It needs to be high enough to create a real incentive for people to return the packaging, yet not so high that it meaningfully increases the shelf price of everyday products. 2. Where will people actually return containers? Retail stores, dedicated depots, reverse-vending machines, or through the existing informal network? A system that competes with waste pickers rather than integrating them risks undermining the recovery rates it is trying to improve. 3. How will material quality and volumes be affected when the incentive shifts from “return to the same shop for a refillable bottle” to “return anywhere and receive a digital payment”? *The old system kept bottles in a closed, high-quality loop. A single-use DRS will feed recycling rather than reuse for most materials.* 4. What data will producers, retailers and municipalities actually need to report, and who will carry the administrative load? The draft strategy already points toward stricter tracking of packaging metrics and diversion performance.   These are not theoretical questions. They determine whether a new DRS will meaningfully improve recovery, or simply remain “a good idea” without any traction because of cost and complexity.   **The opportunity sitting in plain sight**   International schemes show that well-designed DRS can push collection rates above 90%. [South Africa’s version](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385369686_Researching_a_Deposit_Return_System_for_South_Africa_Costs_and_Benefits_of_Implementing_a_Mandatory_Deposit_Return_System_for_Beverage_Packaging) will succeed or fail on how well it respects local realities – the existing informal network, the uneven retail landscape, and the simple fact that the old café counter no longer exists for most people.   *The challenge is translating a neighbourhood habit that once ran on glass, trust and local relationships into a system that can handle plastic, aluminium, digital payments, EPR compliance and national targets*.   We know the behaviour works when the incentive is clear and the return point is convenient. We also know the informal sector is highly effective at recovering value from discarded packaging. Let’s take what worked then, redesign it for what we need now, and turn what we already know into a recovery system fit for the future.   [Book your free waste audit and start saving today.](https://www.wasteplan.co.za/waste-management-services/waste-audit/) [View full post](https://blog.wasteplan.co.za/blog/from-corner-café-to-reverse-vending-machine-what-sas-old-deposit-habit-can-teach-the-new-drs) ```json { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Bertie Lourens" }, "dateModified" : "2026-09-30T10:00:00.999Z", "datePublished" : "2026-09-30T10:00:00Z", "headline" : "From Corner Café To Reverse Vending Machine: What SA’s Old Deposit Habit Can Teach The New DRS", "image" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 720, "url" : "https://4001940.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/4001940/From%20Corner%20Caf%C3%A9%20To%20Reverse%20Vending%20Machine%20What%20SA%E2%80%99s%20Old%20Deposit%20Habit%20Can%20Teach%20The%20New%20DRS.png", "width" : 1280 }, "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://blog.wasteplan.co.za/blog/from-corner-café-to-reverse-vending-machine-what-sas-old-deposit-habit-can-teach-the-new-drs", "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 60.0, "url" : "https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/4001940/wasteplan-logo.png", "width" : 206.89655 }, "name" : "WastePlan Blog" } } ```