“Starting Next Week, Impressive Operation to Implement Deposit on Cans”

Throwing an empty can in the trash or on the street will soon cost you money. From 1 April, after the large and small plastic bottles, there will also be a deposit on cans. Just like the small plastic bottles, a 15 cent deposit is levied on the tin.

According to Hester Klein Lankhorst, director of Afvalfonds Verpakkingen, it was an “incredible operation”, but all preparations have now been made to collect the deposit on cans.

You can hand in your empty cans just like bottles at about 5000 supermarkets. This can be done in the same machines where bottles are returned. There are also about 22,000 other collection points such as petrol stations, NS stations and sports clubs.

The recyclable cans have a different barcode and you can recognize them by a deposit logo. The first cans with a deposit are already on the shelves and they will eventually replace the old cans. You can therefore still see cans in the store for which you cannot get a deposit after 1 April.

If you want to get the 15 cents back for your can, it’s best to keep it intact. The barcode must be legible and a crushed can will not be accepted by the machine.

“We will all have to get used to the fact that you empty the can completely and that you don’t completely crush it, so that the barcode can still be read,” says Klein Lankhorst.

At the moment, many cans end up on the street. According to Milieu Centraal, an estimated 150 million cans ended up in the environment in the Netherlands in 2021. Introducing a deposit should reduce this by 70 to 90 percent. “This will take a while, of course. This is a behavioral change that we all have to implement,” says Klein Lankhorst.

According to Milieu Centraal, it takes more than fifty years for an aluminum can to break down in nature. “These cans also often end up in mowing machines and the sharp pieces can injure animals. Such metal packaging often also contains ink. You want to prevent nasty substances from entering the environment,” says a spokesperson.

Incidentally, litter in the Netherlands has increased in recent years, by 10 percent, according to Milieu Centraal. The share of plastic bottles did decrease after the introduction of a deposit in July 2021. Six months later, 53 percent less of these were found in litter.

A clean stream of collected cans makes it a lot easier to turn them into new cans. This is in line with the increasing need to close cycles and reuse raw materials such as aluminium.

Not everyone is happy with the introduction of a deposit on cans. For years, the sale of cans of soft drinks has been a good trade for entrepreneurs along the German border. In Germany, there has been a deposit on cans since 2003. That is why many Germans cross the border to load shopping trolleys with Dutch cans, because they do not have to store and return them. Now that the difference has disappeared, some entrepreneurs fear the consequences.

One of them is Tony van Drie of Handelsonderneming Parkstad in Kerkrade. “Maybe this is going to cost us our heads,” he says. “The clientele is disappearing because 85 percent of our customers are German.”

Shopkeeper Hay Bauer thinks that German customers will soon stay away, but he can go ahead for a while “Now I have 6000 square meters completely full. I can continue to sell cans without a deposit until at least January next year.”