Oh absolutely! Dutch politicians tend to suck at actually implementing new rules that work.
I’ve heard about excellent results in some of the nordic countries like Sweden. From what I understand, you/they have machines where you can easily deposit a large amount of cans/bottles. We don’t have those here.
Our Dutch machines are basically retrofitted ones that used to just take in large 1-2 liter bottles. You have to put in one bottle at a time. That wasn’t a problem when they only handled big bottles, but now with cans and small bottles, there’s issues. For one, it takes ages to deposit cans. Because you have to put one at a time in. This means that if you’re stuck behind someone who’s depositing two large garbage bags, it’s going to take a while. Also, because the cans are rarely really empty, the machines also get very sticky and break down a lot. In some supermarkets, they basically stop fixing the machines on busy days because… it’s just too annoying. So this means that it’s always a hassle to get your deposit back.
There’s also other issues like: cans can’t be dented in any way, or it won’t read them. And not every machine takes every deposit item. I.e. if you bought it at supermarket A and supermarket B doesn’t sell it… they won’t take back the item and give back the deposit. (To be clear, they SHOULD, but due to different barcodes, SKU’s, old software, that sort of thing… in practice it doesn’t really work. It’s a YMMV situation). The machines also only really give you a ‘deposit ticket’, which you can either use to fund your groceries, or (theoretically) return to get cash. So there’s a lot of friction in the system between depositing a bottle and getting an actual deposit back.
As for why Swedish homeless don’t tear open bags… maybe you just have nicer homeless people than we do.
Right now in the Netherlands, around 95 percent of large (1-2 liter bottles) are returned, but only around 65 percent of the cans.
It’s interesting that your return rate for cans is worse than for bottles.
There’s actually an interesting historical reason for that. We’ve had bottle deposit here since the days of glass bottles. The bottles would be sold, consumed, brought back, cleaned and refilled. Glass is great for that. The bottle deposit was generally set at 1 guilder. This was the currency we used before the Euro.
If you did your weekly shopping in say, 1995, you’d return your bottles and get a ticket. If you returned 10 bottles, that would be 10 guilders. Now, a FULL cart of groceries for a decent sized family would cost you a 100 guilders max in those days. So that bottle deposit took a nice chunk off that grocery bill. As a result, we had and still have a large percentage of bottle returns. It’s ingrained in people to bring back those large bottles since they’ve always done it.
Now, with cans… there’s a bit of a problem. The deposit for large bottles is 25 cents, but the deposit for cans and small bottles is 15 cents. That’s not a whole lot, especially considering how much the price of groceries has skyrocketed. Basically, the bottle deposit isn’t really a good incentive in terms of monetary value. It only really makes sense if you collect larger amounts of them, like the homeless.
They ARE planning to increase the bottle deposit - make it 50 cents in fact - as a way to incentivize people to bring them back. That will ‘probably’ work to an extent, but most people dislike the system for other reasons than the monetary value. And if those other issues aren’t fixed, raising the bottle deposit only annoys them further.
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Oh absolutely! Dutch politicians tend to suck at actually implementing new rules that work.
I’ve heard about excellent results in some of the nordic countries like Sweden. From what I understand, you/they have machines where you can easily deposit a large amount of cans/bottles. We don’t have those here.
Our Dutch machines are basically retrofitted ones that used to just take in large 1-2 liter bottles. You have to put in one bottle at a time. That wasn’t a problem when they only handled big bottles, but now with cans and small bottles, there’s issues. For one, it takes ages to deposit cans. Because you have to put one at a time in. This means that if you’re stuck behind someone who’s depositing two large garbage bags, it’s going to take a while. Also, because the cans are rarely really empty, the machines also get very sticky and break down a lot. In some supermarkets, they basically stop fixing the machines on busy days because… it’s just too annoying. So this means that it’s always a hassle to get your deposit back.
There’s also other issues like: cans can’t be dented in any way, or it won’t read them. And not every machine takes every deposit item. I.e. if you bought it at supermarket A and supermarket B doesn’t sell it… they won’t take back the item and give back the deposit. (To be clear, they SHOULD, but due to different barcodes, SKU’s, old software, that sort of thing… in practice it doesn’t really work. It’s a YMMV situation). The machines also only really give you a ‘deposit ticket’, which you can either use to fund your groceries, or (theoretically) return to get cash. So there’s a lot of friction in the system between depositing a bottle and getting an actual deposit back.
As for why Swedish homeless don’t tear open bags… maybe you just have nicer homeless people than we do.
Right now in the Netherlands, around 95 percent of large (1-2 liter bottles) are returned, but only around 65 percent of the cans.
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There’s actually an interesting historical reason for that. We’ve had bottle deposit here since the days of glass bottles. The bottles would be sold, consumed, brought back, cleaned and refilled. Glass is great for that. The bottle deposit was generally set at 1 guilder. This was the currency we used before the Euro.
If you did your weekly shopping in say, 1995, you’d return your bottles and get a ticket. If you returned 10 bottles, that would be 10 guilders. Now, a FULL cart of groceries for a decent sized family would cost you a 100 guilders max in those days. So that bottle deposit took a nice chunk off that grocery bill. As a result, we had and still have a large percentage of bottle returns. It’s ingrained in people to bring back those large bottles since they’ve always done it.
Now, with cans… there’s a bit of a problem. The deposit for large bottles is 25 cents, but the deposit for cans and small bottles is 15 cents. That’s not a whole lot, especially considering how much the price of groceries has skyrocketed. Basically, the bottle deposit isn’t really a good incentive in terms of monetary value. It only really makes sense if you collect larger amounts of them, like the homeless.
They ARE planning to increase the bottle deposit - make it 50 cents in fact - as a way to incentivize people to bring them back. That will ‘probably’ work to an extent, but most people dislike the system for other reasons than the monetary value. And if those other issues aren’t fixed, raising the bottle deposit only annoys them further.
deleted by creator