News

The Netherlands: additional collection points for plastic beverage bottles

The Netherlands wants to increase the number of plastic bottles collected. The action plan "Increasing the collection of beverage bottles" drawn up by PWC provides the Packaging Waste Fund Foundation with a number of measures.  PWC's action plan includes a total of six measures to be taken in three areas: infrastructure & logistics; scope of the system and consumer behaviour.

  • In terms of infrastructure and logistics, the measure consists of a substantial increase in the number of collection points. For example, there would be 800 extra deposit machines in and near supermarkets, 1,800 extra deposit machines in places where many people visit every day (educational institutions, festivals, airports, stations, etc.) and on top of that 2,800 extra manual collection points.
  • The aim of the deposit system is to achieve the legal target of 90% collection of plastic beverage bottles. This target applies to all plastic beverage bottles, including those without a deposit. Possible solutions to be able to collect the fraction of the bottles without a deposit are being sought with the producers of these bottles.
  • Consumer motivation and encouragement are the most important actions to make bottle return a success. This should be further achieved through a national campaign and activation campaigns.

However, this process takes time to grow. Denmark and Norway, the two countries with the best results in this application, took more than 8 years to reach 90% of the collection. The current timeline for the Netherlands is ambitious: the fund wants to reach 90% by 2026, but to do so requires broad social cooperation. This means that more partners will have to join, such as schools, public transport, festivals, etc.

A pilot study was also launched in January 2024 to work with local residents to find out how they can be encouraged to return more returnable packaging.


in News
Federico Bassotto March 1, 2024
Share this post
Archive