Artificial grass pitches: the polluters are increasingly calling the shots

Recycling Netwerk has observed for years that the companies causing the waste problems succeed in increasingly determining the waste policy as well. The national government has stepped back in so many areas that formulating, informing about, and even monitoring environmental policy has largely been left to the interested companies themselves.

The broadcast "De kunstgrasberg" (The artificial grass mountain) by investigative programme Zembla demonstrates this strikingly once again.

Recycling Netwerk therefore decided years ago to focus more on the enforcement of existing regulations. Regarding car tyre waste on artificial grass, our 2016 enforcement request was brushed aside by the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate. We believe we can expect more from the report we filed with the public prosecutor in September 2017.

That the waste from artificial grass pitches themselves is also poorly processed comes as no surprise. The underlying problem is that a pattern has emerged within environmental policy where maintaining pleasant polder consultations is more important than enforcing important environmental measures, says Recycling Netwerk.

Civil servants who settle for the easiest solution within the frameworks available to them, stretching environmental policy and not checking whether agreements made are actually being fulfilled – this laxity is a worrying status quo.

Because governments do not enforce, developments in actual recycling and correct processing are being held back. This cannot be the intention of the Dutch ambition to achieve a Circular Economy.