Life Skills, Surviving Europe

How to get refund on cans and bottles in Germany

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Download the printable brochure

Almost every drink you buy you pay a deposit on for the bottle.
Almost all stores have a refund bottle area. Each deposit station may vary from store to store.

Can you return bottles from any store?
Generally you can return bottles from any store.
Some bottles can only be funded for the deposit at the store you bought it from.
If the bottle is dirty or not empty you may need to rinse it out. Some stores provide an area to rinse out the bottles.

Y2ou pay a deposit on the bottle for almost every drink you buy.
Pfand or Deposit, how can you tell?
Sometimes it says on the label and sometimes there is a symbol.

1.PFANDFLASCHE- REFUND
2.Mehrwertflasche” or “Mehrwertglas” has a few cents pfand on it.
PFANDFREI-NO REFUND

Dented cans and bottles with missing labels are not able to be scanned.
If the scanner can’t read the bottle you may not get your refund.3

You don’t have to buy anything to get your deposit back. Just take your ticket to customer service and you will get your refund.

When buying something in the store make sure you give the ticket to the cashier before you pay. The refund will be deducted from your total, any remaining amount will be giving to you.

4

Each deposit station may vary from store to store. Some may even have an English setting.

 

Sugin Musgrave

Sugin’s mission is “Supporting Military Families with Life Skills and Information Education”. In addition to giving spouses unlimited access to her work via social media, Sugin works in concert with various government agencies to ensure her information is accurate and on point. Her coupon savvy has been recorded in DeCA’s publication "Decavision". AFN has also recorded her work for informative purposes. The Airman and Family Readiness Center at Ramstein Air Base regularly hosts her classes, they range in variety from couponing, cost-cutting cleaning products, and homemade beauty products. Sugin published her first children’s book called Butterfly in The Sky, Daddies Little Girl in 2006. Sugin’s goal with her books is to help military children understand and cope with ongoing deployments. Giving back to the community she has received so much from has earned her nominations for various awards, including Woman of Merit (2006) and Ramstein Spouse of the Year for 2014, which she won.

2 Comments

  1. What a great video! We didn’t realize we could return plastic bottles or glass jars that weren’t from drinks! So informative, as always!!!

    1. Happy to have helped. Reminder this also applies to some canned drinks also. Just check the symbol and the word PFAND.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *