The Beverage Container Refund Scheme (BCRS) has achieved a milestone with the recycling of 100 million beverage containers in Malta.

The milestone was achieved in just over seven months following the launch of the scheme in November last year.

The project is operated by BCRS Malta, a not-for-profit private operator formed by a collection of beverage producers, beverage importers, and beverage retailer associations.

Last month, the BCRS also recorded the most containers it has collected in one day to date, with consumers returning 768,000 bottles on 24 June.

The average daily collection rate has now reached nearly 675,000 containers, keeping Malta on target to achieve the recovery of 70% of the beverage containers placed in the country's market by the end of this year.

A BCRS Malta spokesperson said: “Since January, the collection rate has steadily remained at around 74%. We are pleased to see that the majority of people have embraced this new practice of recycling.”

“The collaborative spirit which brought the business community, government and the public together has enabled the success of this scheme, which ultimately benefits the Maltese environment.

“Recovering 100 million containers is a major achievement and we look forward to building on this milestone and seeing these numbers increase in the future.”

The BCRS has been rolling out large-scale reverse vending machine depots for beverage containers as the rising temperatures simultaneously increased drink sales.

The scheme has already installed five such high-capacity machine depots at its BCRS Clearing Centre, with two more at different locations to become operational in the coming days.

Malta claims to be the only country in the Mediterranean to have introduced such a deposit return scheme.