Collecting problems
Evert van de Weg outlines the challenges involved in deposit return schemes, particularly in the case of the Netherlands
Not long after the development of the two-piece beverage can in the 1960s in the US and the beginning of commercial production by can maker, Reynolds Metal Company, the Adolph Coors brewery and soft drink producers, Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola, adopted the new can enthusiastically. Many other brand owners followed, and very quickly, the two-piece beverage can became an important package for soft drinks and beers. In the 1980s, initiatives were undertaken in New York to prevent cans being discarded in nature, such as offering a deposit of five cents.
However, less than half of the millions of cans sold every day were turned in, and the remaining money – tens of millions of dollars – stayed within the beverage industry. Homeless people in New York and other big cities in the US began collecting cans to acquire the money, but often shops refused the big bags filled with cans.
It did not take long before creative people found ways to make money out of collections. Kitchen help, Guy Polhemus, earned hardly enough money for a living working in a restaurant in New York, but he recognised the value of cans. He set up a foundation, enlisted ten homeless people, hired a warehouse and in no time, he collected cans with a value of some $15,000 a day. To start with, the beverage industry had no desire to take all these cans back at the expense of their profits, but after court cases were raised, the industry changed its mind and paid. Polhemus said at the time: “This is good for the poorest people in the city and for the city itself.”
More similar initiatives began. The New York nun, Ana Martina de Luco, founded, together with Eugene Gadsden (a ‘canner,’ as can collectors are often mentioned in the US), the redemption centre, Sure We Can. The centre supports local communities, in particular marginalised residents, through inclusion and economic empowerment.
Another famous example of someone who organises can collecting in New York is the Brooklyn millionaire, Lisa Fiekowsky. Coming from a wealthy background, she has an MBA and worked as a stockbroker. She owns millions worth of real estate in New York but collects cans as a hobby, believing it is a good way to keep active, talk to her neighbours and keep the local area clean. Though not all her neighbours and family are pleased about her hobby, she keeps at it, generating between $20 and $30 daily for a few hours of work.
A negative element in deposit systems in the US is that the deposit value of a can has remained as five cents since 1982. Recently, legislation was announced that would increase the refundable deposit to ten cents for all states in the US, but there was opposition against this on the grounds that it would allow recycling processors to raise their rates.
Cans are vital to DRS
It is clear that well-intentioned private initiatives like the ones aforementioned do not solve worldwide litter problems. Consequently, collecting cans and other recyclable packages has become a serious business, organised and pushed by many governments all over the world. A recent consumer survey conducted by Ball across eighteen countries showed that 49% of consumers are considering sustainability when they buy food and drinks. The pressure on fillers, brand owners and governments to use sustainable packages and to take care of high degrees of recycling packages is high. This pressure is being added to by international agreements such as the UN conferences in Paris and Dubai, and the European Climate Law adopted by the European Commission for the EU countries.
This European Climate Law expresses the aim to become climate-neutral by 2050. The law also sets the intermediate target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. The execution in practice of the sustainability programmes and to what extent goals are already achieved differs strongly by country. The most important instrument countries can apply for various packaging formats is that of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS).
DRS policies work by charging consumers a small deposit for drinks packaging, which can be recouped when the packaging is returned to a collection point to be recycled. Some 45 countries around the world have already introduced DRS. Aluminium beverage cans are easily recycled and have consequently become a vital element in DRS policies. Aluminium cans also boast infinite recyclability and recycling them uses 95% less energy than producing aluminium from raw materials. Using that huge advantage of canned beverages helps countries considerably to deliver effective DRS systems. This circularity reduces reliance on new resources. Moreover, the can making industry has decreased beverage can weights by more than 40% since the 1970s, and can makers are doing their utmost to further reduce their footprint by aiming to use 100% renewable electricity in manufacturing (but competing packaging formats like plastic and glass bottles strive for similar goals).
Metal Packaging Europe (MPE), which has hundreds of members consisting of can makers and raw material suppliers, claims that 78.5% of steel packaging and 76% of aluminium packaging is recycled in Europe today, making metal the most recycled packaging. MPE is committing itself to an average European metal packaging recycling rate of 80% in 2025. It is clear that DRS systems are playing a vital role in meeting these goals.
Complications in the Netherlands
In principle, DRS systems should work incredibly efficiently: consumers buy packaged drinks with an additional small premium, which triggers them to bring back the empty packages to a collection point in a supermarket or elsewhere. The system is built on the principle of the polluter pays. Fillers of packages and producers of these packages are responsible for the collection, sorting and recycling of their packaging. Nevertheless, it often takes many years before a nationwide working system is organised, often caused by resistance from the filling, packaging and retail industries.
In the Netherlands, it took many years before the Dutch DRS was implemented. In 2021, the government finally obliged the industry to set up such a system and the organisation, Verpact, took responsibility for the total implementation.
Verpact is obliged to report annually on the achievement of the recycling objectives. The reporting is checked by an external accounting firm and the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate. Recently, this Inspectorate reported that the statutory collection targets are not being achieved, and that Verpact is facing five penalty payments. According to the report, Verpact has installed far too few deposit machines. The result is that €370 million of deposit money consumers paid was not returned to them.
Verpact is now installing new machines at a rapid pace. Nevertheless, it does not help that points of sale for bottles and cans (such as cinemas, kiosks and amusement parks) often do not want to cooperate and refuse to install a vending machine.
State secretary, Chris Jansen, recently wrote to the Dutch Parliament that, despite these challenges, the deposit has had a positive impact on the environment. Compared to the measurement in 2020, the number of plastic bottles in litter has decreased by 72% and the number of cans in litter has decreased by 62%. The recycling rate of aluminium beverage cans in the Netherlands was already at 82% in 2023; for PET beverage bottles it was only 49%.
The state secretary also wrote that he is “happy to encourage third parties to make more locations available.” However, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate is not yet satisfied. It demands Verpact investigates how much higher the deposit should be compared to the current 15 cent deposit on bottles and cans, and the current 25 cent on large bottles. As far as the Inspectorate is concerned, the current amounts should increase considerably. However, parties in the whole chain find this complex, as higher deposits will mean that filled bottles and cans become more expensive.
History repeats itself
Like they were some 50 years ago, cans (and now also plastic bottles) have become a financially attractive prey for collectors. The 15 cents per can or bottle appears to be too low a deposit to amount to real consumer behaviour change in the Netherlands.
Many bottles and cans simply end up in the waste bin, which could also be due to a shortage of properly functioning collection points. Moreover, the hordes of tourists in many cities are simply not aware of the deposit systems. This is why, in many cities, waste bins and bags are opened by ‘deposit collectors’ – often vagabonds, homeless people, or just anyone who urgently needs money. These people can be frequently seen dragging plastic bags full of empty cans and bottles across the street; unfortunately, they do not always carry this out neatly. An unexpected side effect of their acts is that a lot of waste ends up next to the bins, resulting in higher cleaning costs for municipalities. For the layman, there seems to be not much new under the sun.
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