Ordinance
on Beverage Containers
(Beverage Container Ordinance, BCO)

1 The re­cyc­ling level for bever­age con­tain­ers made from glass, PET and alu­mini­um shall be a min­im­um of 75% for each ma­ter­i­al. The re­cyc­ling rate of any pack­aging ma­ter­i­al is the per­cent­age pro­por­tion of the con­tain­ers re­cycled dur­ing a calen­dar year com­pared with the total weight of non-re­fil­lable con­tain­ers of the ma­ter­i­al sup­plied for use in Switzer­land.

2 If the tar­get is not achieved, DE­TEC may re­quire that deal­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­port­ers:

a.

charge a min­im­um de­pos­it on non-re­fil­lable con­tain­ers of the ma­ter­i­al con­cerned;

b.

ac­cept the re­turn of such con­tain­ers and re­fund the de­pos­it; and

c.

pass re­turned con­tain­ers on for re­cyc­ling at their own ex­pense.

3 DE­TEC may lim­it the man­dat­ory de­pos­it to those con­tain­ers that are the main cause of the re­cyc­ling tar­get not be­ing met. It may grant ex­emp­tions from the man­dat­ory de­pos­it if the re­cyc­ling of the con­tain­ers is guar­an­teed in oth­er ways.

4 If man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­port­ers sup­ply an­nu­ally more than 100 tonnes of re­cyc­lable non-re­fil­lable con­tain­ers of a pack­aging ma­ter­i­al oth­er than glass, PET, alu­mini­um or PVC, then DE­TEC may also stip­u­late a min­im­um re­cyc­ling level and meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 for this ma­ter­i­al.