Send your found cans and bottles Back To Sender

To encourage supermarkets and drink producers to cease their opposition to deposits, people are returning drinks packaging from litter to the manufacturers on Monday 25 March. This action is part of the ongoing BackToSender campaign by Recycling Netwerk Benelux.

On Saturday 23 March, the National Clean-up Day took place in the Netherlands. This is organised every year by Nederland Schoon.

The people participating in this clean-up action do so with the best intentions and deserve everyone's respect; they voluntarily do their bit to make their neighbourhood cleaner.

However, cleaning up alone does not offer a solution to the litter problem. A street or neighbourhood may be clean for a short while, but litter is not resolved for the rest of the year. Soon new litter, such as drinks packaging, ends up in the environment. It is like mopping the floor with the tap running.

Approximately 40% of litter consists of cans and small plastic bottles. In Germany and Scandinavia, this drinks packaging is rarely, if at all, found in the environment because there is a deposit on it. If we were to introduce a deposit on these cans and small plastic bottles in the Netherlands, our streets and roadsides would also be cleaner all year round.

However, drinks producers and supermarkets, led by Albert Heijn, oppose the expansion of deposit schemes to all plastic bottles and cans. Because we want litter to be tackled effectively, we are calling on drinks producers and supermarkets to cease their opposition to deposits with this new BackToSender action.

To do this, litter pickers photograph the cans and bottles they find in the litter and share them on social media with #BackToSender and #StatiegeldHoudtNederlandSchoon.

They can then return the drinks packaging via freepost addresses free of charge to the drinks producer or supermarket. Every can and bottle is accompanied by a call on the producer to speak out in favour of deposits.

We are doing this on Monday 25 March to show that just two days after the National Clean-up Day, unfortunately drinks packaging is still, or again, in the litter. Cleaning up does not keep drinks packaging out of our environment, deposits do.

Follow the campaign on the BackToSender website, Twitter and Facebook.

You can photograph this deposit receipt (download) with it.

You can optionally send this letter (pdf) to the producer.