Bottle Recycling Program Coming to Tbilisi

Tbilisi City Hall told Business Media this week that by the end of the year, there will be bottle recycling machines throughout the capital.

Project lead Kukuri Baramidze says that work is actively in progress to the get the recycling machines up and running as soon as possible. The machines will be part of a bottle deposit program, giving users back a deposit they pay when they purchase a plastic bottle.

“If, for example, a Coca-Cola costs 2.00 lari, you will now have to pay 2.20 lari, but that does not mean that the price of the drinks will increase. You can get back the 20 tetri difference by using a bottle recycling machine,” says Baramidze. He also suggested that people living in poverty could benefit by collecting and recycling discarded plastic bottles.

First, machines that can process plastic bottles will be introduced, and eventually the capacity to process glass bottles will be added.

The machines will appear first in Tbilisi and then spread to the regions.

It has not yet been clarified how or when the deposit will be added to the price of bottles or how many recycling machines will be put up in the city.

By Samantha Guthrie
Photo: Star2