85% OF SPANIARDS WANT TO RETURN CANS AND OTHER PACKAGING TO STORES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

An overwhelming majority of Spaniards support the deposit system for beverage containers, which is very close to being implemented in Spain through the Waste Law and the Royal Decree on Packaging. This is the result of a survey carried out by LinQ Market Research Spain among a thousand citizens.

Specifically, 58.3% of respondents give a score of ten to the idea of returning cans, bottles and briks to the store, and 9 out of 10 want the initiative to incorporate glass bottles, something that for the moment is not in the plans of the Ministry of Ecological Transition and that would be key to promoting reuse. The Waste Law and the Royal Decree on Packaging have opened the door to implementing a system similar to that already operating successfully in Germany and the Nordic countries, where more than 90% of beverage containers are recovered for reuse and recycling.

Specifically, 20 state and regional entities consider it essential that, together with the Deposit System, targets for the reuse of packaging for both plastic and glass are contemplated, avoiding the emission of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The organizations have also wanted to present the survey in the framework of the European week of waste prevention and just when it has just constituted the presentation in the Congress of Deputies with the 15 parliamentarians who should lead the approval of the Waste Law, where the Deposit System should be a key measure to change the course of waste management in Spain.

In addition, 84.8% of the participants believe that returning beverage containers to the store and thus recovering the money previously left as a deposit is a very good idea. Also for 88% of the people surveyed, the direct consequence of having a deposit system for beverage containers would be the reduction of the pollution caused every day in Spain by the 35 million containers dumped in the environment.

With the sale of beverages with deposit, the amount of beverage containers dispersed annually in the environment would be reduced by 6,752 tons, limiting it to 2,193 tons per year in a scheme focused only on cans and plastic bottles.

The government is betting on implementing it if 70% of single-use plastic bottles recovered by 2023 and 85% by 2027 are not reached. However, 93% of the people surveyed consider that the return of bottles, cans and briks to the store should be approved as soon as possible, with some parliamentary groups already considering January 2023 as the target date.