Netherlands to charge 15 cents deposit per canned drink sold

Netherlands to charge 15 cents deposit per canned drink sold

By the end of 2022, beverage manufacturers and supermarkets in the Netherlands will be charged a deposit of 15 euro cents per can, its Secretary for Public Works and the Environment, Stientje van Veldhoven, recently announced, a measure that will be taken as of 31 December 2022.

This decision had been announced to be implemented, if the amount of cans that ended up in the environment did not decrease by 70% compared to 2017. Not only has it not decreased, but it has increased in the past year by 27%. According to the Dutch government, around 2 billion beverage cans are sold every year in the Netherlands, of which 150 million are thrown into the environment; that is, as the Dutch secretary mentioned, the equivalent of 25 Olympic swimming pools.

The representative of the Dutch government pointed out that this measure will give successful results and, as an example, the deposit requested for large plastic beverage bottles. “Almost 90% of these plastic bottles sold in the Netherlands are returned.”

So, in view of the good results, not only will can manufacturers and supermarkets have to pay that amount per can, but from July this year, the 15 cents per plastic bottle of less than 1 litre will also be paid.

It is not yet clear where and how to return the cans. The government emphasized that this is the responsibility of producers and supermarkets, and that the costs of the deposit system will be covered by producers.

“In Brussels we are not discussing whether or not there will be deposit systems, but when and how they will be implemented. In Europe, ten countries already have them and ten more are discussing their implementation date”. This statement, reviewed by the newspaper Público, corresponds to Joan Marc Simon, director of Zero Waste Europe, and was made at the end of last year at an event organized by the Zero Waste Alliance regarding the new waste law that has to see the light in Spain this 2021.

“On an environmental level, reuse and prevention are much better than recycling, so the debate revolves around how to implement Deposit Systems with usage quotas for reusable packaging and eco-design objectives,” he insisted.