Residents of the municipality of Groningen pay an annual, fixed amount for the collection of their waste next year and the year after. It is not yet clear how high that amount will be.
More research
The city council decided on Wednesday night just before 2:00 am that more research should be done into the diftar system proposed by GroenLinks, D66, VVD and Party for the Animals.
That plan means that people who do not have their own waste container pay an amount each time they throw a garbage bag in the underground container. People who do have their own container will have to pay an amount per kilo as far as the parties are concerned.
Haren
That two-track policy (pay per kilo for a container, pay per garbage bag if you don’t have one) was a requirement of the VVD. That party is needed to get a majority for the diftar waste system. But the requirement was only put on the table last week, so the plans for it have not yet been calculated.
Why does the VVD want two different ‘diftars’?
In principle, the VVD is in favor of the diftar waste system, where you pay more if you hand in more waste. However, the party could not fully agree with the proposal of councilor Glimina Chakor (GroenLinks). He suggested that residents of the entire municipality should pay each time they put their container by the road, or put a bag in the underground container.
The liberals demanded an exceptional position for the politically important former municipality of Haren. In that municipality, residents are already paying per kilo of waste, and residents like that. 84 percent of the inhabitants want the system to remain as it is, and the VVD wants that too.
An exception for a specific area is not possible. Because many people in Haren have their own waste container, the VVD agreed with the idea of distinguishing between people with and people without their own container.
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Two-track policy
GroenLinks, D66 and Party for the Animals agree with the VVD’s demand. They even submit a motion together in which they express their wish for the dual track policy.
‘The possibilities for the introduction of that system must be investigated’, say the parties. The costs of the expected more expensive kilo system must also be listed as far as the four parties are concerned.
Diftar’s advent appears in jugs and pitchers
With the plans for the investigation, the arrival of diftar in the municipality of Groningen at the start of the meeting appears to be in jugs and pitchers. The four parties have a majority and agree with each other. The situation is as follows: the municipality will choose diftar-per-bag-or-bin from 2021, and after the results of the survey are available, it will become clear whether people with their own container will pay per kilo.
But after the meeting has been adjourned several times and several parties consult behind closed doors, the parties adjust their position. The research is coming, but there is only talk of diftar again after the results of the research are known.
There is also no diftar-per-emptying for the time being. Basically, diftar will not be introduced in Groningen until 2023 at the earliest.
‘Bad for political prestige’
What exactly happened during the suspensions remains unclear. A council member says that ‘everyone had a fight with each other’, other politicians speak disgrace of the course of events during and after the meeting. “This is not good for politics,” they say. SP member Jimmy Dijk speaks of ‘unprecedented political amateurism.’
The latter is also happy with this amateurism. The SP is fiercely opposed to Diftar and, just like the PvdA, expected before the meeting that the system they feared would make it. ‘Very special but beautiful for us!’, PvdA member Jan Pieter Loopstra calls it, while SP’er Dijk congratulates the Groningers on Twitter with the unexpected outcome for them.
Waste has been causing political fireworks for years
The discussion around diftar has been going on for years. In 2005 there was already talk of a trial with diftar. In 2017, a plan to introduce diftar failed because there was no council majority.
The current coalition parties (GroenLinks, PvdA, D66 and ChristenUnie) think differently about waste policy. GroenLinks and D66 are in favor, PvdA and ChristenUnie are against. For that reason, opposition parties were able to leave their mark on the ‘diphtar debate’
In any case, six opposition parties are against diftar: they, like PvdA and ChristenUnie, fear more waste dumping, among other things. Together, the parties have 22 council seats.
After eleven of the twelve parties voted last Wednesday announced, the VVD opposition party turned out to be the only one who still had doubts. The liberals demand that residents of the former municipality of Haren continue to pay per kilo.
Other parties were unable to meet this requirement sufficiently: GroenLinks wants research to be carried out first into the question of whether diftar per kilo is more suitable than diftar per emptying. That is why the plan to introduce diftar in 2022 was broken at the last minute.
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‘Still see opportunities’
After the chaotic meeting, GroenLinks announced that ‘it would have preferred to have diftar introduced by 2022’, as was originally intended.
‘We still see good opportunities to introduce a form of diftar once the results of the research into diftar with settlement per kilo will be known. We have established that the council first needs more clarity on this before a decision can be taken on the introduction of diftar, ‘says the party.
‘Evening went differently than expected’
Alderman Glimina Chakor (GroenLinks) says she will come up with a new proposal on waste policy after the investigation. “The evening went different than expected,” says Chakor. ‘But every municipality that decides about waste has struggles. It is a topic that lives. ‘
Also read:
– Waste in the municipality of Groningen: pay per bag, kilo, or both (not)?
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