The following factors influence the investment size, and what the refund deposit system for beverage packaging encompasses:

Beverage packaging type, which is encompassed by the deposit system or planned to be added shortly: plastic bottles, aluminium cans, steel cans, glass bottles (both disposable and refillable glass bottles), beverage cartons (not yet recommended until the technology evolves);

Products, which are considered as a part of deposit system: beer, water (carbonated and non-carbonated), soft drinks (carbonated and non-carbonated), juices and juice concentrates, wine, spirits, dairy products (milk, yoghurt, etc.). Dairy products are usually not recommended because the hygiene requirements of the stores are unknown, as well as no satisfactory solution for implementing opaque PET recycling possibilities. At the same time, if opaque PET gets mixed up with another PET then it cannot be quality recycled;

Market share per pieces and different packaging types – it makes the most economic sense and is most efficient if the share of CAN aluminium is the largest, because it can be easily recycled and its residual value is high. On the other hand, collecting and organising recycling of glass is the most expensive, because pressing/crushing glass on site at the stores (some modern Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) have this capability) is still rather uncommon (mainly due to high noise level, possible glass dust and work safety related problems). Residual value of glass is also the lowest;

Number of inhabitants and population density across the county/country (i.e. what is the level of urbanisation and what is the number of inhabitants per store in low-density areas). Also the number of shops per packaging located on the islands and their service can play an important factor;

Division of stores according to size and their locations across the country by rules of which stores have to provide DRS collection point. As well as the number of shops/packages located on the islands and their service;

The number of tourists and their seasonality, which is very important issue for touristic countries.

A most important factor in the calculation of the size of the investment in DRS and in planning of handling (recycling) centres is to understand the quantity (number) of packaging, covered by DRS, that is put to the market. This number influences waste generation the most, and needs to be defined/estimated as accurately as possible. Other influencing factors that can influence waste generation are changes in data quality, changes in waste generation due to socio-economic influences, system efficiency or changes in the number of citizens generating waste [42]. To enable modelling of the last factor, as well as changes due to tourism related migrations, it is good to express waste generation per capita. Comparison of amounts of collected packaging waste per capita, as well as number of tourists, for three EU countries is given in Table 1.

Another side is represented with a quantity of collected packaging per type of packaging through DRS system. It is different from put to market value by the system efficiency. In the case of DRS, usual system efficiency ranges between 80 and 90% [44].

Also, as some economic flows are connected to the mass of the packaging, and other to a number of collected packaging, it is important to calculate each value. Depending on available data, unknown values can be calculated using average mass of average mass of packages. Average mass of usual packaging that can be found as a part of DRS are measured and amounts to ca 44 gram (g) for PET, ca 13.5 g for CANs and ca 360 g for glass bottles.

In the planning phase of a DRS, it is very important to assess the collection structure, meaning if packages are collected with RVMs and are counted and compacted in the shop or collected manually. To ensure DRS transparency, each collected package has to be identified by EAN code, which means that all manually collected packages or non-compacted packages should be counted by DRS itself or its appointed and controlled third party. As the RVMs decrease DRS operating costs, as they count and compact the packages immediately after acceptance, it is logical that use of RVMs should be motivated through the system because its usage entails bigger investment cost for retailers. The retailers are obliged to invest into the deposit system infrastructure, including package return rooms and the RVMs. DRS should compensate the initial investment according to the accepted packages over time, but the initial investment obligation will remain with the retailers. Many retailers would delegate the package return solution to third parties (service providers). It is important to note that even in such case, the retailer would still remain responsible in front of consumers.

Through the comparison of the statistics in different countries with deposit systems (Table 2), a suggested number of inhabitants per one RVM can be defined, and it ranges between 2,500 and 3,000.

When packaging is collected it is transported to handling (counting/processing) centres. These centres receive packaging from surrounding areas and count it, sort and compact. Thus, they need to be positioned and dimensioned taking into account packaging waste generation/collection distribution and quantity, including sessional changes.

All of these steps lead to data transparency which is an important basis for the deposit system and represents the foundation for its controlling. Controlling helps to analyse and monitor possible frauds, including fraud by consumers or workers and cross-border risk. Considering the data volume (basically every sold and returned package is in the database) a DRS must be capable of using the so-called big data analysis.

In the countries with deposit refund system, a standard practice is that the system covers direct costs which are in a relation with the collection of packaging. This practice can be different in different EU countries, but a general principle is the "polluter pays" principle in which the polluter is responsible to cover the costs of collection of (beverage) packaging it puts to the market and its recycling. Therefore, the importers and producers have to pay the expenses of operation of the deposit refund system through the so called recycling fee. The contribution of retailers is that they accept the packaging and must not put their usual profit margin to that service [45].

The main costs of the DRS are:

• Retail handling fee,

• Costs of transport and logistics,

• Handling (counting, recycling) centre costs,

• Cost of administration,

• Depreciation on investment.

It should cover the direct costs for the stores arising from the collection of packaging (included in the deposit system) returned by the consumers and their delivery to the DRS [22]. In majority of DRS countries, there is agreement that the DRS should cover the direct costs of the packaging with deposit marking (some indirect costs for producers and importers are discussed later), while the retailers will not profit from that activity. The difference can arise if the example store, upon which the calculation of RHF is made, is the most effective one or is it a store with an efficiency average over the whole country. Since the retail handling fee is the largest cost in the DRS, it must be agreed with the retailers and other stakeholders of the DRS, and so calculated based on correct basis and at an effective level [22].

Usually, RHF is divided in two fees, an automated (RVM) retail handling fee, and a manual reception RHF. The RVM RHF can vary based on the packaging material since the cost of accepting different materials can be different. Apart from collecting packaging at retail stores, DRS can offer its collection service of packages with deposit markings also to Horeca^† sector companies. Companies in that sector usually pay only deposit, so there is no need for an additional fee like the one that is paid to the retailers (RHF) for collection in stores. The difference is that retailers must enable the collection of the packages marked with the deposit marking from the consumers and invest into it, while companies in Horeca sector collect such packages as a result of their own activity (serving drinks to clients) and they do not need to organize collection of packages from the consumers [46]. So, for the Horeca sector it is useful that the DRS takes over their packaging relieving them from that burden and at the same time paying them value of the deposit.

Based on the review of DRS in different countries [45] the fee for automated acceptance (via RVM) of packaging for the retailers goes in range from 1.7 to over 4.0 cents EUR per package/unit. This is clearly shown in Figure 1, where handling fees of DRS systems in five EU countries are presented. Also in Figure 1, the difference in the handling fee amounts for the automatic acceptance compared to the manual can be seen. If the relative (percentage) differences in the amount of automatic handling fee (with compaction) is compared to the manual acceptance, it can be seen that most of these countries have a much higher ratio of these fees (ranging between 20–302%). The larger (relative) ratios contribute to investment in the purchase of RVMs and ultimately greater system efficiency.

Figure 1

Handling fees in some countries (darker colours indicate the fees for manual acceptance while lighter colours indicate the fees for automatic acceptance)

As it is said, these fees need to cover retailers' costs associated with collection of packaging returned by consumers and its handling, regardless is it manually collected or via RVMs.

If the presumed volume of returned packages with deposit marking per month crosses 10,000 packages, then it would make sense for the store to invest into an RVM instead of accepting packages manually. The market offers RVMs with varied sizes and speeds. The optimum return of a regular, medium size and full compacting (PET/CAN) RVM is between 40,000–60,000 packages per month. There are (market) solutions that could increase that number even further due to the fact that such RVMs do not have to stop operating, continuing to accept the packages, even when being emptied. The characteristics of the country and on which days and at which times the consumers go to the stores must be considered (it can usually be presumed that the packages are returned before shopping). If the number of returned packages exceeds the optimum amount, the store can always add an additional RVM.

When packages are collected with RVM deposit system will cover the costs of:

Investment in and installation of RVM – the retailer should cover the investment into RVM, but the DRS will cover to the retailer that investment cost over time through RHF. The usual method for dividing RVM investment into RHF is to use the RVM lifespan in years and divide it with the average number of returned packages per year or use the RVM lifespan per accepted packages as the basis. In this case, it does not exactly matter if the RVM accepts 10,000 or 100,000 packages a month (replacing the RVMs with new ones will simply be faster). It is recommended to implement such sort of RVM that can press packaging as much as possible (compaction) immediately after the packaging is identified and accepted. This reduces the possibilities of manipulation and fraud by the RVM personnel (e.g. inserting one package multiple times). The packaging material with the lowest value (and the highest cost of collection) for the DRS is glass. This is because reception and later processing is difficult, while the market value of the glass as the secondary material is very low (the lowest of all packaging materials in DRS). There are RVMs on the market that are capable of crushing the glass packages after the package is identified and accepted, so maybe it is worth to analyse investing in such machines. The benefits of crushing the glass packages on the spot (in store) are that the possibility of multiple return (i.e. fraud) is eliminated and that logistics and processing is simpler and easier which reduces the costs (less volume transported etc.). If applying that, one should pay special attention to the work safety (noise and glass dust during the crushing, hygiene requirements, etc.). Also, it would be most convenient (cost-wisely) if there is a glass recycling plant in a closer radius. Investment costs in RVMs can be defined as average cost per RVM machine or average cost per installed collection capacity. These costs are estimated at around 39,500 EUR per RVM or around 780 EUR per 1000 accepted units [9] (this and the following monetary amounts are net value, which means that VAT is added according to local regulations).

Cleaning and maintenance of RVM – these operating costs include consumption of electricity and needed materials (receipt paper, other), internet connection cost, cost of cleaning material, and maintenance and spare parts for RVM. Operating costs are on average 9% of investment costs per year [44].

Compactor – the cost of the compactor is separated from the cost of RVM since compactor lifespan is shorter than of RVM. That cost also includes the costs of replacement of the compactor blades as well as the additional electricity consumption of compactor. Compactor unit cost amounts to 2,460 EUR per compactor [44]. Also, it should take into account that in normal operation wear of compactor blades and other parts lead to the need for its replacement every 1.3 million units compressed on average.

Labour – this cost relates only to collection of the packaging with the deposit marking, and it includes: changing and emptying of the collection bags and/or containers at RVM, cleaning of the RVM as well as the package accepting room and client area. Time required to empty a full RVM device and storing the collected packaging waste in the warehouse is estimated on 5 minutes.

Space and utilities – the cost of the space (room) needed for reception of the packages (i.e. rent) along with utility costs (heating, lighting, water, waste, room cleaning). The space required includes the area for placement of the RVM and additional space for servicing the RVM, area for storing of packaging, and client area. If the package accepting room is in the same building with the store, then the rent of the premises is used as the basis. If the package collection is done in a separate building (e.g. in a special container facility located e.g. at the store parking) then the depreciation cost of the building is used as the basis. Usually, a total of 5 m² is required for the retailer to install the RVM device, of which 1 m² is in the retail (store) area [44].

If the volume of accepted packages is less than 10,000 per month, it is usually economically unreasonable to install an RVM, thus manual acceptance is a logical option. In the case of manual collection, cost structure is much simpler. Taking into consideration all previously said and with the assumption that collection is not done inside the store, the retailer only needs to ensure 2 m² of storage space on average [9]. Cost of this can be valuated through the local rental cost for business/storage space. Only additional costs are associated with the need for additional man-hours for the packaging acceptance, management and deposit return to customers. The time required for a worker to accept an average of 30 units of packaging waste and temporarily store them is estimated at 90 seconds. The cost of this can be valuated through the local average salary for this job type.

They depend on different factors [45] such as:

Dedicated rounds for collection of packages with deposit marking – such special collection rounds have sense in densely populated areas, such as larger cities.

Collection of packaging during goods delivery (back-hauling) – such option is applied in regions which are scarcely populated having fewer stores, so it is possible to collect the packages after goods delivery.

Transfer stations – it depends on the size and characteristics of the territory of a country (e.g. if there are many small islands, mountain ridges or low populated areas) whether to include transfer stations into the DRS or not. If the transfer stations are located more than 100–150 km from the final destination they could be considered justifiable, according to the logistics companies, but if the distance is shorter, it is more reasonable to transport the packaging directly to the processing-counting centre (or recycling plant in the case of glass) after being collected. The specifics of the companies offering the transport service, or the logistics solutions used by them must also be considered.

Packaging volume – the volume of packaging being transported is one of the key factors for cost efficiency of transport, especially if it includes uncompacted packages. In case of PET packages (bottles), the quantity of pressed packages is twice as large as the number of uncompacted packages, and in case of aluminium cans that difference is up to four times. Therefore, compacting packages in RVMs can decrease the costs of transportation and transportation packaging greatly.

Crushing glass packages on site – similar to previous point, the transportation of glass packaging is also demanding and generates large cost. Considering previously mentioned problems with the noise, dust and hygiene, it should be estimated if the benefits of crushing glass packages on site at the store (in RVMs) surpass the obstacles. If so, that would decrease the costs of logistics and recycling of the glass packaging significantly.

These costs are very case dependent and need to be modelled specifically for each specific case due to local specifics.

Another part of the collection infrastructure are the handling (counting/processing) centres used to further process the empty containers collected at the retailer (stores) and to prepare them for selling and recycling. In a modern counting/processing centre, the already compacted packaging (collected via RVMs having compacting ability) is further compressed in industrial presses into large cubes which are then sold to material recycling plants. When using non-compacting RVMs, or packages that are accepted manually, or collected from Horeca sector companies, empty containers will need to be counted to check the number collected by what is referred to as an industrial RVM (this is because the packages are not crushed, as in compacting RVMs, and so could be re-entered back into the system to claim back the deposit twice). The value of deposit and RHF is paid to the respective retailer depending on the amount counted. The packaging is counted based on the EAN code, which ensures that no deposit is paid out for packaging which is not included (registered) in the system, and for which no deposit was initially paid. The payment to the retailers for the deposit packaging that has to be counted by the industrial RVM, is done according to the data generation of such equipment. In the case of compacted packaging, the amount paid to retailers as compensation is based on the data obtained from the RVMs (at collection points, in stores).

The most relevant are [45]:

The cost of rent of a building – it is also possible to own a building, instead of renting it, in which case the cost of depreciation is used for calculation of total cost, but in the first stage of establishing the DRS it is more convenient to rent the building. The reason for that would be that detailed data of the shares and quantities of different DRS packaging on the market will become better known after first few years. The average required area of the building is calculated to be around 54 m² per 10,000 units capacity [22].

Investment into equipment, the most expensive of which are the industrial counting machines, presses, processing lines, conveyors, and other equipment and machinery. These costs are estimated to 99,580 EUR per 10,000 units capacity on average [22].

Costs of utility and operational costs of handling such as water, sewerage, heating, ventilation, equipment maintenance and spare parts are estimated at 11% of investment cost [22].

Labour – labour represents one of the largest costs for counting/processing. To estimate the handling centre labour costs associated with handling and administration, the Trading Economics data [47] was used. This cost calculation assumes that activities of unloading of transportation packaging, counting of uncompacted packaging, and all handling activities until the packaging is baled and sold to the end-user are responsibility of the workers in the centres. The following aspects have a high impact on costs of labour [45]:

• Type of transportation packaging that is used. E.g., in Sweden, "bulk transport" is used, which means that a reusable container is emptied in a compactor-container truck, which can be easily emptied in the handling centre without the need for workers.

• Depending if the glass bottles are counted at the handling centre or whether some other method is used as a basis for determining appropriate compensation to retailers. For example, in Finland, the basis for payment to the retailers is the average glass container capacity, which was mutually agreed upon (this, however, allows deceiving the DRS). If there is no need to count the glass bottles, cost for labour and counting equipment are reduced significantly.

• Whether glass bottles are crushed at the retailer. In such case, the crushed glass bottles can be transported directly from the store to the recycling plant, which means the material does not need to go through the handling centre at all.

Need for manpower in counting/processing can be estimated to 40 and 55 workers per 10,000 units of capacity, but local specifics should be taken into account for calculation of labour costs.

These costs include labour, IT infrastructure (which is considered among depreciation), promotion and communication, office rent, and general administrative costs. Regarding the core labour costs, it is estimated that an average of 10–12 people is needed in the central DRS operator organisation, which includes management staff, finance staff, security/system accountability staff, customer service representatives, and communication staff [45]. These costs can differ from case to case depending on specific system needs as well as locally dependent requirements (such as legislative dependent requirements regarding employment of workers on specific job functions). To preserve financial sustainability, system accountability and security must be carefully monitored to reduce the risks and effects of possible fraud. Regarding communication costs, it is necessary to inform the public, so that consumers understand the importance of returning their empty packages, know what types of packaging are included in the program, and how the deposit refund can be retrieved. One of the main purposes of communication is to increase recycling rates. Another way to raise recycling rates is to increase the deposit value but this may lead to higher risk of fraud [22]. Regarding IT costs, they include maintenance and support, software licenses, and development costs. In total, from the analysis of different systems, the costs of annual administration can be estimated to amount to around 2% of the system income.

The majority of previously defined system costs need to be covered by system revenues. The main sources of revenue for the DRS are incomes from unredeemed deposit, sale of materials and industry/administrative fees.

Unredeemed deposit (UD) represents the value of deposits paid on packages that have not been redeemed and that have likely been discarded as trash or littered in nature. Total revenue from unredeemed deposits is calculated by taking the number of unredeemed packages and multiplying that by the deposit value. This value is inversely proportional with efficiency of the DRS system, the higher efficiency of the system leads to smaller amount of overall unredeemed deposits and vice versa. Deposit value is agreed upon among all DRS stakeholders and differs from country to country. The deposit on beverage packaging in the refund system ranges from very low values – in Croatia it amounts to 0.066 EUR, in Estonia and Lithuania it is 0.10 EUR, very high deposit values of 0.25 EUR are in Germany and the Netherlands, to the highest – 0.32 EUR in Norway for certain types of packaging (plastic and metal bottles > 0.5 L), 0.4 EUR in Denmark (bottles ≥ 1 L) and 0.4 EUR in Finland (plastic bottles > 1 L) [45].

Income from materials sale (MS) represents the direct income of the DRS system as DRS organisation in majority of countries is the owner of the material that enters the DRS. The market value of different materials varies depending on the demand and other factors. For instance, in case of aluminium sales price being around 1,000 EUR/t, it means, that it might cover the whole collection, logistics, counting and sorting related processes. With much lower value of glass, it is good if it covers the logistics costs up to the recycling plant. Sales prices for different materials are in most cases based on secondary material markets and market indexes such as EUWID (Europaischer Wirtschaftsdienst) [48] and Letsrecycle [49]. Recent trends in secondary material market are shown on Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2

Secondary material market trends for PET and cans [49]

Figure 3

Secondary material market trends for glass [49]

The DRS organisation should operate on the non-profit basis. In other words, the organisation must cover the costs of system operation without a profit motive, i.e. the idea is that DRS system operates at positive zero – Equation 1.

$RHF+TLC+HCC+CAC+UD+MS+IAF=0$ (1)

Industry/administration fees (IAF) are shown as the last factor in the Equation 1. If a small profit is made, this must be re-invested into the system (i.e. for upgrades, etc.) or reserved for future use. As a result, any shortfall in the operation of the system needs to be absorbed by fees paid by industry. IAF cannot have negative value, i.e. it can't represent income for industry/administration, as it is previously said. Specific producer fees are usually calculated by taking the deficit (the difference between the total costs and total revenues from deposit which are not redeemed and income from sale of material) and dividing that between all the packaging that is put to the market. Additionally, it is important that there should be no cross-subsidising between materials; producer fees should reflect the actual cost to recycle various materials.

As with any investment, it is important to clarify and understand some key details which should be prescribed. It is defined that DRS system encompasses plastic bottles, aluminium cans, steel cans and glass bottles for products like beer, water (carbonated and non-carbonated), soft drinks (carbonated and non-carbonated), juices and juice concentrates, wine, spirits, etc. As it is said, dairy products are usually not recommended, although the dairy products were part of Croatian DRS until 2015, after which they were excluded. They are considered again, and so dairy products are to be reintroduced in the Croatian DRS from 2020 [55]. Geographical particularity of Croatia includes areas of different population densities as well and around 700 islands of which 48 permanently inhabited and this presents a special problem for packaging collection and logistics. Regarding retailers' responsibility, stores with area under 300 m² do not have to accept packages. Also, pronounced seasonality of tourism in Croatia needs to be emphasised as it presents an important issue.

Number of packages put to the market through the sales represents one of the most important factors for modelling DRS. Table 3 shows the estimated number of packages that enter the Croatian market. According to data [22], annual sales volume declared to Croatian DRS by producers is 620 million pieces. Free riding^§ share cannot be clearly defined.

If to rely on findings presented in [50], it was estimated that around 30% of the products was not registered at the time (estimation done for 2017). Based on that, it was assumed that producer declared sales will increase by 30% (very soon) after the changes based on recommendations in the previous study [43] are implemented, reaching 806 million units annually. It was also taken that in the next 3–5 years sales will increase additionally by approx. 5%, derived from the estimated economic growth. These two analysed scenarios are named "After the change" (immediate increase of registered packaging volumes for 30%) and "3–5 years after the change" (further increase of packaging volumes put to the market), starting from the present (2017) situation – a suboptimal scenario named "Current".

The doubts shown in [50], about real market size, were justified with the fact that amount of generated (general) packaging waste per capita in Croatia (which was previously shown in Table 1) is the smallest in the EU and also very small compared to Lithuania and Estonia, which have similar GDP (Figure 4). In addition, the study [50] does not take into account tourists' visits compared to mentioned other countries, with Croatia having the largest number of tourists of the three (especially when compared to population of Croatia of 4.2 million inhabitants), which offers an additional justification to that hypothesis. Considering refillable packaging, DRS countries which have return systems for refillable packaging, have a system in which such packaging and its deposit value circulates directly between producer and retailer. Although refillable packaging is not managed by DRS organization, it still influences the DRS system, because the same infrastructure for their return is often used (RVMs). It was estimated [22] that the annual market in Croatia for refillable packaging is around 500 million packages, but nevertheless refillable packaging is not considered in this work (only one-way DRS packaging).

According to available data for 2017 [22], the collection amounts of Croatia in tons are given in Table 4.

If to use the average mass of packages, like PET ca 44 g, CAN ca 13.5 g, glass bottle ca 360 g, then it can be derived that the annual amount of packages collected in Croatia is 558 million packages (Table 5). In addition, the collection data after system change and 3–5 years after implementation of changes are calculated. The estimation is that after 3–5 years the market would transform into a clear and transparent one, which would motivate consumers to contribute more into environment and packages collection. An efficient DRSs packages return rate is usually between 80–90%, therefore the presumption, that Croatian return rate will be 85%, was taken.

Currently Croatian DRS has 97% of manual collection and only 3% is collected via RVM^**. The most probable reason for such very low RVM share is mainly derived from the relatively low level of retail handling fee, which is paid per each package collected from consumer (Figure 1). Increase in the use of RVMs need to be motivated as the RVMs decrease DRS other operating costs.

Table 6 shows current RVM share and the scenario after changes implementation. In addition, it was presumed that after 3–5 years RVM share will rise to 80%. RVM share in collection in some efficient and long experience DRSs is even 90–95%.

According to current distribution of collection of packaging in the Croatian deposit refund system (Figure 6) and considering the size, shape and distribution of population in Croatia, it was assessed that at least two handling centres are needed, one should be located around the city of Zagreb and another near the city of Split – two biggest agglomeration areas (Figure 7).

Figure 6

Collection in Croatian deposit refund system, by counties [51]

Figure 7 depicts two influence areas of handling (counting/processing) centres covering accordingly 80% (Zagreb) and 20% (Split) of the population. But one must take into consideration tourism, that results in ca 65% of the packages being consumed and collected in the Zagreb area and ca 35% in the Split area.

Figure 7

Areas serviced by the proposed handling centres (adapted from [22])

Detailed overview of the packaging volumes processed by the handling centres is described in Table 7.

This analysis assumes that both centres will receive packaging from surrounding areas on equal basis, i.e. the amount of manually accepted packages and volume of glass bottles is similar in both centres. Thus, the investments into both centres include industrial counting machines that count manually accepted packages and glass bottles, compactors, sorting and baling lines and other necessary machinery and equipment. Additionally, it is taken into account that the DRS central office is in Zagreb handling (counting/processing) centre, meaning an administrative unit with IT system. Pursuant to this, the planned investment into the two handling centres would be around 7.17 million EUR (net value). It is important to point out, that according to this projection, the handling centre facilities will be rented. It is also important to note, that beverage products consumption and collection is very seasonal, and sales volumes differences between low season (winter) and high season (summer) may be double. The biggest investments in both handling (recycling) centres are industrial counting machines in amount of ~2.3 million EUR, sorting lines ~1.9 million EUR, balers ~1.8 million EUR, IT system (including software and hardware) ~0.4 million EUR, other equipment (including office and other handling centres equipment) and setup cost ~0.77 million EUR.

The retailers are obliged to invest into the deposit system infrastructure, including package return rooms and the RVMs, which then should be compensated over time trough DRS operation. Taking into account previously defined average number of RVMs per inhabitants it was calculated that ca 1100 RVMs are needed to install in Croatia to reach situation where 80% of packages are collected with RVMs. Overall initial investment by the retailers into the package recycling system is calculated on the basis of previously defined costs and ranges between 30–40 million EUR (without VAT).