Haya sasa watu wa mazingira, nina jambo la kudiscuss with you guys!

Recently, I noticed something interesting in Germany. You rarely see plastic bottles littering the streets, and one thing that seems to help is a system called Pfand.

For those who haven't heard of it, here's how it works: when you buy a drink, you pay a small deposit for the bottle or can. In Germany, it's usually €0.25 (25 cents) for single-use plastic bottles and cans, while some reusable bottles have a deposit of around €0.08 (8 cents).

Once you finish your drink, you can return the empty bottle to a machine at a supermarket and get your money back.

Instead of throwing it away, you have a reason to return it. You'll even find people collecting empty bottles from public places to get the deposit money.

Now, this got me thinking... what if we had something like this in Tanzania?

Imagine if returning your empty soda or water bottle meant getting some money back. It could help kupunguza uchafuzi wa mazingira, keep our streets and mitaro cleaner, and create opportunities for people to earn money by collecting bottles.

Of course, implementing it wouldn't be that simple. We'd need collection points, recycling infrastructure, and shops willing to participate.

But for watu wanaojali mazingira, do you think a system like this could work in Tanzania? What would it take to make it happen, and what challenges would we need to solve?

Let's discuss this. Maybe there are people here who have worked on waste management or environmental projects and have interesting perspectives.

US citizens traveling to Tanzania at the end of this month. We’re landing around 2AM on a Sunday.

I’ve read differing things but most say getting Visa on arrival is much quicker. But is that still the case on a weekend and in the early morning?

Thanks for any advice!

Edit: flying into JRO

Just curious as to whether it’s more of a tourist vibe