In Germany we had rules that shops have to take back packaging, but especially with online shops this just wasn't used enough, so now the shop or manufacturer has to pay a (weight-based) fee for all the packaging they give to consumers. Pretty small though from what I've heard.
Unless it's a store that you have to drive to anyway. For example, my dry cleaner years ago used to "recycle" hangers. You could bring back your hangers from the previous time and get like 2 to 10 cents off your current order for each hanger you returned. (Don't recall the exact amount, probably closer to 2 cents if I think about it.) This was nice because you were going there anyway, and also because you didn't end up with a closet full of empty hangers!
This is also what we did with soda cans when I lived in Michigan. You'd pay 10 cents extra per can, and then get it back when you returned them. If you didn't return them, the state had 10 cents to use to clean up waste produced by that can. If you did, you got your money back and the can got recycled. It seemed to work pretty well. I remember a year after they started the program noting how much cleaner the roads seemed because people were going out and picking up cans to return them and fewer people were throwing them out their car windows.
Most plastic waste is from weekly groceries. No one in their right mind would make a special trip to take the junk back, simply take a black sack with the previous week's garbage when next going shopping. It would be no additional cost and minimal inconvenience.
It's how recycling used to work. There were big skips for glass, paper, textiles etc in most supermarket car parks. They were well utilised by shoppers before entering the store. Before that we used to return the empties for reuse within the store.
If a campaign of returns caused supermarkets to restrict suppliers, and create less in the first place, I would do so diligently.
At least here, experience showed that people do not bring stuff back, I don't think mailing it back would be any better: if they don't want to bring packaging to the store, will they carry it to the post office to mail back?
It also seems like a massive environmental waste to ship individual packages of garbage around, when you can handle it locally just as well, and have manufacturers pay for it.
> So why is this obvious solution not implemented?
I have no inside information but I think it is because manufacturers will collude to add this as a visible added cost to the cost of the product. Consumers will think stuff became more expensive because of some idiots in DC/Brussels.
It's a collective action problem like any other. Collusion on a wide scale in competitive markets is pretty damn difficult, since one company can change their manufacturing processes to produce less waste and suddenly undercut everyone else's prices. "Passing the whole price increase onto the consumer" rarely withstands scrutiny, excluding cases with very low demand elasticity or very oligarchic suppliers. Neither of these are the case for the vast majority of packaged goods that are sold.
