Putting out extra bottle banks is just a plaster onetime fix

The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) is now pretending that it is finally imposing an incremental penalty payment on the Packaging Waste Fund (Afvalfonds Verpakkingen) in order to meet the recycling target, but in reality it's limiting itself to prescribing 800 extra bottle banks over the next 2.5 years. This was stated by environmental organisation Recycling Netwerk in response to the press release from the ILT on Wednesday morning. Recycling Netwerk has since filed another appeal against this delaying operation.

Recycling Netwerk has spent nearly three years engaged in formal enforcement requests to enforce the legal standard for glass recycling. The Council of State has already ruled in favour of the environmental organisation twice. In its ruling of 23 January, the Council of State ruled that the government must impose an incremental penalty payment on the Packaging Waste Fund.

On Wednesday morning 5 June, the ILT eventually stated in a press release that it is "imposing an order subject to penalty (LOD) on the Packaging Waste Fund Foundation. The measure is aimed at getting the foundation to recycle more glass. The order obliges the Packaging Waste Fund, among other things, to install 800 additional glass recycling bins in the Netherlands before 31 December 2021".

"The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate therefore remains reluctant and wishes to accept that the recycling obligation will not be met in the coming years either," says Recycling Netwerk chairman Robbert van Duin: "The ILT focuses on a means (800 extra bottle banks) and not on the legal objective, namely 90% glass recycling. With extra bottle banks, the recycling standard will probably not be met again in the coming years. In order to achieve that 90 per cent, the government must stop the increasing supply of beer bottles without a deposit and, for example, reintroduce deposit schemes on glass jars for spreads and preserves, among other things."

The 90% glass recycling prescribed by the Packaging Management Decree (Besluit beheer verpakkingen) has never been achieved in the last ten years. The Packaging Waste Fund has broad powers to impose levies and can thereby enforce the taking of measures. But the Packaging Waste Fund does not do so, and our government (ILT) accepts that.

Producers are responsible for ensuring that waste from their products and packaging is recycled as much as possible. This is regulated by law in product decrees that specify the minimum percentage that must be recycled. For glass, this is 90 per cent. "But this approach with product decrees works poorly, due to overly general regulations and insufficient enforcement. The course of events surrounding the enforcement of glass recycling by the ILT is the most recent example of this," says Van Duin.

More info

Read the full ruling of the Council of State here, 23 January 2019

Read the press release from the ILT here, 5 June 2019

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