Sustainability
Your bottles are part of Singapore's Beverage Container Return Scheme
We press juice in small batches, to order, and deliver it across Singapore in plastic bottles inside reusable cooler bags. That is a business with a real footprint, and we would rather be specific about how we handle it than make vague green promises. This page lists what we do, what you can do with the bottles and bags after you have finished, and how Singapore’s new bottle-deposit scheme works for our customers.
From 1 October 2026, every pre-packaged drink sold in Singapore in a plastic or metal container between 150ml and 3 litres carries a refundable 10-cent deposit under the national Beverage Container Return Scheme (BCRS). Antidote is a registered producer under the scheme. Our 250ml, 500ml and 1L bottles carry the BCRS deposit mark and a barcode registered with the scheme, so the refundable 10 cents per bottle appears as its own line at checkout and on your receipt: S$1.80 on a 3-day cleanse (18 bottles), 10 cents on a single juice. It is never part of the juice price. Our 50ml wellness shots and 5-litre catering bottles are outside the scheme’s size range and carry no deposit.
How to get your deposit back
- Finish the juice, rinse the bottle, put the cap back on. Do not crush or flatten it: the machine needs to scan the barcode on the label, so the label must stay on and readable.
- Take the empties to any Return Right reverse vending machine. There are machines at larger supermarkets, town centres, HDB void decks and some hawker centres across the island; the Return Right app and the NEA website have a map.
- Scan each bottle. The 10 cents per bottle is refunded to your SimplyGo EZ-Link or DBS PayLah account.
Return. Refund. Recycle. Every marked bottle is worth 10 cents back at any Return Right machine.
Every bottle returned this way is collected for recycling through the scheme rather than going to Semakau with general waste. Singapore’s plastic recycling rate has sat around 5 percent for years; the scheme exists to change that, and it only works if the bottles come back. If you would rather not make the trip, rinse the bottle, replace the cap and put it in the blue recycling bin at your block or condo. You forfeit the 10 cents, but the bottle still gets recycled.
Return your cooler bag, get S$2 back
Every delivery comes in an insulated cooler bag with ice packs. The bags are the most reusable thing we send you, so we want them back.
- Hand any Antidote cooler bags to our driver on your next delivery.
- WhatsApp or email us your order number and the number of bags returned.
- We credit S$2 per bag to your account, applied automatically to your next order.
Sanitising Cooler Bags
Returned bags are sanitised and go straight back into the delivery cycle. Ice packs can be handed back the same way to be refrozen and reused.
We also do not hold stock. Every bottle is pressed the day before it is delivered, in the quantity that has been ordered, from produce bought for that day’s production. That is why our juice has a four-day shelf life rather than a thirty-day one, and it is also why we throw away very little: there is no warehouse of unsold juice to discard at the end of the week.
Why our bottles are plastic, not glass
We get asked this often, and the honest answer is that we looked at it and glass is worse for what we do. A glass bottle weighs roughly six to eight times what a PET bottle weighs, takes more energy to manufacture, and that weight travels in a van around Singapore every day. Glass also breaks, which matters when bottles are packed in ice and handed over at condo guardhouses. For a product delivered daily by vehicle and collected again through a national return scheme, lightweight PET bottles that go back into the recycling stream are the lower-impact choice. We review this periodically, and if a better option appears at a scale we can use, we will switch.
What we are still working on
We would rather tell you what is unfinished than imply it is done.
- Our PET bottles currently contain no recycled content. Food-grade recycled PET that meets our shelf-life and safety requirements is becoming available in the region, and moving to it is the next step we are evaluating.
- Fruit and vegetable pulp from pressing is our main by-product and is currently disposed of as food waste. We are looking for a composting or animal-feed partner at the right scale.
- Delivery runs on conventional vans. Route planning keeps the kilometres down; electrification depends on the vehicle market and charging at our premises.
If you work in any of these areas and think you can help, contact us.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to pay the BCRS deposit?
Yes. Under the Resource Sustainability Act, every seller of a deposit-marked beverage in Singapore must collect the 10-cent deposit and every buyer must pay it. It is refunded in full when you return the bottle.
Can Antidote refund the deposit when the driver collects my empties?
No. Refunds are made only through the scheme’s reverse vending machines, which scan each bottle. Our driver can take your cooler bag back for the S$2 credit, but not the bottles for the deposit.
What if the label is damaged?
The machine needs to read the barcode. If the label is torn or soaked off, the bottle will not be accepted for a refund; recycle it in the blue bin instead.
Is the deposit charged on subscription and corporate orders?
Yes, on any order containing 250ml, 500ml or 1L bottles. Corporate and hotel orders supplied in 5-litre containers have no deposit.
Are the bottles and caps recyclable in the blue bin?
Yes. Rinse, replace the cap, and put the whole bottle in the blue recycling bin. Please do not put them in general waste.
