Deposit on cans from 2023

A deposit on cans will be introduced on 31 December 2022. This is what State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven of Infrastructure and Water Management writes in a letter to the Lower House. She is taking the decision early because the number of cans in the environment is increasing rather than decreasing. In accordance with the wishes of the Lower House, the earlier government decision for a deposit on cans will take effect at the end of 2022. Per can 15 cents deposit will soon be charged. Just as for small plastic bottles. The purpose of the measure is to collect and recycle the approximately 2 billion cans that pass over the counter each year, instead of them ending up in our environment. The Netherlands joins Germany, Finland, Norway and Denmark, among others, in putting a deposit on cans.

150 million cans in the environment

Van Veldhoven indicated to producers last year that the number of cans in the environment had to decrease by at least 70% in the course of 2021 compared to the average of 2016/2017, and that a deposit would otherwise be introduced. The legislation for this was prepared simultaneously, and was approved by the Council of Ministers in October 2020. Now recent figures for the year 2020 show that for the second time in a row the number of cans has not decreased at all, and has actually increased by 27%. So the trend is not less but more cans in the environment. This makes the agreed reduction unfeasible and a deposit on cans the automatic next step. 

Small businesses and the hospitality industry exempted

Where you can hand in your can in the future is still being worked out. As with bottles, it is up to producers and supermarkets that put cans on the market to shape this system. The government does set a number of preconditions. Van Veldhoven has determined that the catering industry and smaller retailers will be spared, just as with the deposit on small plastic bottles. This means that they will be exempted from collecting cans, and the producers of cans will bear the costs of the deposit.

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