In Denmark, returning empty standardised glass bottles from consumers back to breweries has been a common practice since the 1890s. In the 1920s and 1930s, this deposit system spread—with unified beer bottles and crates—to all breweries in the country. In the 1990s, however, with the emergence of many different plastic containers and cans for beverages, it became challenging for retailers to handle and sort this variety of packaging. Waste from plastic packaging also emerged as an environmental problem—with huge amounts of plastic ending up in landfills or incinerators.

The Ministry of Environment, in conjunction with stakeholders from the business and retail sectors, created a unified deposit system with an initial investment from the state. The Dansk Retursystem, a not-for-profit organisation, was created to have the monopoly over and handle the collection of beverage packaging in collaboration with supermarket chains. Following this system, the beverage producers deposit some money to the Dansk Retursystem, which, in turn, pays the supermarkets based on the packaging collected. Lastly, the supermarkets pay the producers back based on the packaging returned. Bottle prices include an extra cost for packaging. When consumers return the empty bottles to the supermarkets, they get the extra cost for packaging back.

After 20 years, key results include: 95% of all plastic bottles sold are now returned (the highest rate in Europe), and every time 100 bottles are recycled, 6 kilograms of raw materials are saved. The return rate for all disposable packaging (including cans and glass bottles) reached 93% in 2021.