RE: Шампанско за смет? Champagne for Trash?
With us it depends how much you receive back on a bottle but ..you only receive back what you paid for. So you pay for the drink + the price of the bottle (glass or plastic or can).
During my childhood the milkman delivered at home in glass bottles but I doubt we paid for those bottles. We simply have them back (cleaned) as he delivered the new order.
We did receive a refund for the glass bottles (just milk, yoghurt, custard, buttermilk and beer nothing else) about 30-35 years ago. No machines but a human collected them.
If you ask me this problem counts for most countries. Back then as the EU started they told us every product within the EU will cost everywhere the same.
No way. Shopping in Germany is at least 30% cheaper, same for Italy and if it comes to Lidl it's by far not the cheapest supermarket.
Even Malta is cheaper although this is an island which beats me. Also we deal with empty shelves and fewer products unlike Malta, how come?
It was more than 30 years ago, but I clearly remember the glass bottles for everything - milk, yogurt, boza (very popular back then, nowadays out of fashion but still sold at many places), beer, even Coca-Cola, specific and different shapes and sizes, even colors for each of the products. We had to wash them good and keep them, it was hard to buy new stuff if the empty bottles have not been returned first. :) Hm, I seem to miss those times. Everything tasted much better.
The standard of living here is so screwed, that Lidl is unfortunately one of the cheapest stores. We don't have all of the big chains though. Only Billa, Kaufland, Lidl and Metro (not exactly an everyday store but still), from the top of my head. No Aldi and none of the UK chains.
I think it is a bit utopic to even imagine products cost the same everywhere as all the prices depend on the value/prices of the services, salaries, etc. and those have huge discrepancies around the union.
I don't know what would be the entry-level monthly salary for Lidl in the Netherlands, but I saw a public advertisement for the Bulgarian Lidl with gross monthly salary of about 700 EUR. I guess I could safely bet it is more than 2000 EUR there :) probably more in the big cities...
The only time I've seen empty shelves here was during the covid panic when people were overstocking with certain products.
I've seen much worse though, in 1991, I was a student, living far away from my family, the government was "former"-communist and the economy was so screwed that we were given coupons for bread and cheese in small quantities and in order to actually get some, I had to wake up at 4:00 AM and get in a long queue long before the shops open.
Bulgarians joke about this situation - during the communism there was a deficit of everything but people had money. Nothing to buy though. Presently, there is surplus of everything one could think of but now people can't afford it 'cause they don't have enough money. Funny... thinking of it, we're getting closer to the Brazil model - 1-2% superrich, no middle-class and the most of the population struggles to buy food and medicine, and pay for heating during the winters.
Sorry, this came out too long :) Sweet dreams :)