The Green Scouts in Iceland have been working on Sustainability for a long time and have become specialists in the collection of returnable packaging, cans and bottles. They have created a company which is owned by the Association of Icelandic Scouts and has been operating since 1989. The company grew during this time and at the moment has a total staff of 22 people. It is worth noting that the recruitment of the staff is inclusive and 15 of them are people with disability and are in part time employment with a support from the government.

Green Scouts have reception centers around the country where everyone can get rid of cans and pass them on as a gift. For the operations the Scouts use small containers and at the moment there are over 140 containers around Reykjavík, most of the in special pits for recycling. The Green Scouts have one return facility where people can get their deposit paid back. Furthermore, their corporate services collects cans from companies and associations and return them as cash payments. The deposit for each item is 16 Isk and when collected from companies they receive get 9 Isk.

All proceedings from the Green Scouts activities go directly to the healthy upbringing and social work of young people under the auspices of Icelandic Scouts across the country. Iceland was the first country in the world to set up a deposit system on a national scale for a wide range of containers. That’s why you won’t find many empty containers in Icelandic nature.

The total turnover for 2020 was 137.000.000 Isk. Not a bad turnover when you consider that you help the environment at the same time… Sustainability and inclusion at its finest.