Bringing forward the deposit decision on plastic bottles is a good thing

“With deposits on small plastic bottles, the Netherlands will quickly achieve the new European standard of 90% separate collection of plastic bottles”. This was stated by the Deposit Alliance in a reaction to the letter to the House of Representatives sent by State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven (D66) on Friday morning.

Stientje van Veldhoven originally planned to make a decision about deposits on small bottles in the autumn of 2020. She writes to the House of Representatives that she wants to provide clarity as early as this coming spring. After all, the amount of small plastic bottles in litter is showing an upward trend instead of a downward one.

Cans

The Deposit Alliance unites more than 900 municipalities, organisations, and businesses in their demand for deposit return schemes to be introduced on all plastic bottles and cans. “Now that the legislative process for plastic bottles is being accelerated”, the Deposit Alliance encourages the government coalition of VVD, CDA, D66 and CU “to continue on the chosen path and also implement a deposit scheme for cans”.

After all, even more cans than bottles are found in litter. Livestock farmers are calling for this because they are confronted with damage to cows caused by shards of cans. There are also fears of a shift towards cans if they were to fall outside the scope of the deposit legislation. Of all countries that have a deposit scheme on plastic bottles, the Netherlands is currently the only country without a deposit scheme on cans.