More and more people are causing litter
Environmental movement commissioned its own policy evaluation. During the (nearly) concluded cabinet term, the number of people throwing beverage packaging on the street did not decrease, but increased. This is shown by behavioural research into 'Cans and bottles in litter'. The policy evaluation was commissioned by the environmental movement after the government and the business community stopped their joint monitoring. Recycling Netwerk, which represents the environmental movement in this area, fears that not introducing a deposit on cans and bottles will lead to increasingly high cleaning costs for municipalities.
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In 2001, 2.3% of respondents reported ‘bad behaviour’; they had thrown away, dropped or left behind the last bottle or can—but not in the litter bin. At the time, it was established that around 50 million cans and bottles had ended up in litter. This means that in a city like Zoetermeer or Leiden, around 1,000 cans or bottles are thrown on the street every single day. The behavioural study now shows that litter is increasingly being caused after consuming a bottle or can outdoors. During the last cabinet term, there appears to have been a gradual increase in this litter-causing behaviour from 3.2% in 2003 to 5.7% in 2006. At the time, the government and the business community agreed that a deposit on cans and bottles would be introduced if the amount of litter was not quickly reduced by 67%. Although not a single year since 2001 has seen less litter-causing behaviour reported, the introduction of a deposit scheme is still pending. The environmental movement sees this as yet more proof that the current waste policy is failing. Robbert van Duin, spokesperson for the Recycling Netwerk: “The current waste policy seems to be primarily aimed at avoiding conflict with companies. No action is taken when rules for packaging waste are ignored or agreements on less litter are not met, just as toxic ships are not prevented from leaving the port with banned cargo.” The behavioural study was carried out by the agency Trendbox, which in previous years carried out this monitoring on behalf of the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) and the business community. The results of the litter policy were measured based on this monitoring. Because the last ‘Packaging Covenant’ expired last year, the monitoring was stopped. In order to still be able to determine the results of the cabinet policy, Recycling Netwerk, a coalition of 11 environmental organisations, commissioned the implementation of the most crucial part of this study themselves. Using the exact same questions, the ‘litter-causing behaviour’ was mapped out, making it easy to compare with behaviour in previous years. You can download the research report here (PDF)
