The business sector itself sabotaged the introduction of deposits on cans, but the Council of State still grants a postponement

The Council of State says today that it considers it 'plausible' that the business community will not be able to meet the statutory start date for deposits on cans due to IT problems. Therefore, the preventive penalty payments of the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) will not take effect. State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen declared time and again that the statutory start date is fixed and the business community cannot deviate from this. This ruling now shows that the government is failing to hold companies to the law. Environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk responds: "Despite nearly two years of preparation time, the business community is not ready to add cans to the deposit system by 31 December. As a rule, deposit countries set up an entirely new system within a single year. This delay is an absolute failure on the part of the Dutch business community. Following today's ruling by the Council of State, it also looks as though the business community will now get away with this without any sanction." Yesterday, the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management Vivianne Heijnen declared in the House of Representatives: "They have had plenty of time to prepare; that is my opinion. Now they indicate that they cannot manage. They are free to object and appeal against that or start a court case about it. The message from the ministry is clear: the scheme will simply take effect on 31 December". However, the ruling of the Council of State shows that the State Secretary is failing to hold the business community to the law. Recycling Netwerk Benelux has nevertheless warned the State Secretary and the ministry several times since the publication of the draft legislation (2019) that the law is not legally strong enough to enforce a proper implementation of deposits. Environmental organisation RNB now expects the State Secretary to do everything in her power to live up to her commitments to the House of Representatives. In doing so, together with the ILT, she must also do everything possible to prevent further delay beyond 1 April. InBev's lawyer already hinted at a 'transition period until 1 July' during the case before the Council of State. We expect the ILT to ensure now that the introduction as of 1 April is definitely guaranteed. The ILT can do this by imposing an order subject to a penalty with a remedy period until 1 April on 31 December 2022. Recycling Netwerk concludes: "Companies announce that they are not going to respect the law, and the government apparently cannot do anything about it. This is an inexplicable situation. We therefore ask politicians to learn lessons from this. Government and the House of Representatives must reconsider how they fill in producer responsibility. The government always only sets targets and then trusts that the business community will execute agreements and laws benevolently. But we have warned several times: there is a large dose of unwillingness among the companies. It is time for the government to take back control and draft better legislation. You have to impose environmental legislation; poldering with the business community only leads to bad results." Background information / history On 3 February 2021, then State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management Stientje van Veldhoven announced that there would be a deposit on cans. The start date was set by law as 31 December 2022. Companies thus had an implementation period of 1 year and 10 months. This is exceptionally long: in other countries, companies are usually given an average of only one year to set up an entirely new deposit system. In the Netherlands, the business community only had to add cans to the existing deposit system for plastic bottles and glass beer bottles. After wasting almost a year on an unfeasible idea for collecting cans outside supermarkets because retail did not feel like collecting cans, the Waste Fund declared unilaterally in June 2022 that they would only start the deposit system for cans from 1 April 2023. Three months after the legal implementation date, that is. The Waste Fund does not have the authority to change dates in laws. With this, the business community simply announced that they were going to deliberately break the law. The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) issued preventive penalty decisions on 30 September 2022 because the business community was "taking insufficient action" to meet the deadline and "provided insufficient evidence justifying postponement until 1 April 2023". These penalties would take effect on 31 December and could amount to up to 28 million euros. But the business community appealed. In response, the ILT suspended the penalties until 3 February 2021. This would mean that the business community can break the law for at least 1 month without any adverse consequence. To prevent this, Recycling Netwerk, represented by Hörchner Advocaten, went to the Council

The Council of State says today that it considers it 'plausible' that the business community will not be able to meet the statutory start date for deposits on cans due to IT problems. Therefore, the preventive penalty payments of the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) will not take effect. State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen declared time and again that the statutory start date is fixed and the business community cannot deviate from this. This ruling now shows that the government is failing to hold companies to the law.

Environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk responds: “Despite nearly two years of preparation time, the business community is not ready to add cans to the deposit system by 31 December. As a rule, deposit countries set up an entirely new system within a single year. This delay is an absolute failure on the part of the Dutch business community. Following today's ruling by the Council of State, it also looks as though the business community will now get away with this without any sanction.”

Yesterday, the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management Vivianne Heijnen declared still in the House of Representatives: “They have had plenty of time to prepare; that is my opinion. Now they indicate that they cannot manage. They are free to object and appeal against that or start a court case about it. The message from the ministry is clear: the scheme will simply take effect on 31 December”.

However, the ruling of the Council of State shows that the State Secretary is failing to hold the business community to the law. Recycling Netwerk Benelux has nevertheless warned the State Secretary and the ministry several times since the publication of the draft legislation (2019) that the law is not legally strong enough to enforce a proper implementation of deposits.

Environmental organisation RNB now expects the State Secretary to do everything in her power to live up to her commitments to the House of Representatives. In doing so, together with the ILT, she must also do everything possible to prevent further delay beyond 1 April. InBev's lawyer already hinted at a 'transition period until 1 July' during the case before the Council of State. We expect the ILT to ensure now that the introduction as of 1 April is definitely guaranteed. The ILT can do this by imposing an order subject to a penalty with a remedy period until 1 April on 31 December 2022.

Recycling Netwerk concludes: “Companies announce that they are not going to respect the law, and the government apparently cannot do anything about it. This is an inexplicable situation. We therefore ask politicians to learn lessons from this. Government and the House of Representatives must reconsider how they fill in producer responsibility. The government always only sets targets and then trusts that the business community will execute agreements and laws benevolently. But we have warned several times: there is a large dose of unwillingness among the companies. It is time for the government to take back control and draft better legislation. You have to impose environmental legislation; poldering with the business community only leads to bad results.”

Background information / history