This phot outlines beautiful. If heartbreakingly, the law of unintended consequences.

Last summer the Dutch government introduced deposit returns for small plastic bottles and cans. A 500ml pet bottle is €0.15, and a can is €0.10. They used the justification of reducing litter this policy.

Reducing litter.

It hasn't worked. In fact it's made the problem worse. This isn't the fault of the idea of a deposit return system on small drinks containers. But in the implementation. Thread time. 1/n

The biggest flaw in the way the system has been implemented, is the difficulty in returning bottles and cans. If you buy a drink at a gas station, drink it there, and try to return the empty bottle and get your 15c back. They can't do it. You have to take it to a supermarket. Where they have machines capable of processing the return. If you have a single bottle, you're not going to make the trip just to return it. If you don't have an easy way of carrying the empty, or don't want to...

2/n

Then in the bin it goes. Sure you lose the 15c, but meh, it's only 15c. Many people aren't going to worry about that...

But some do. And so you get people going round emptying the bins searching for bottles and cans they can claim the deposit on. And they aren't worrying about not making a mess in the process... and so we get the situation in this photo. I watched from my bus as two men walked down the street with a bin liner full of empty cans and bottles. Leaving a trail of mess behind.

3/n

This consequence of the law was evident very quickly after it came into effect. Some municipalities were quick to fit racks to bins in parks so that if you didn't care about your deposit, you could leave your empty bottle or can in the rack, and people didn't need to ransack the bin to find it. Alas they still got ransacked, cos well there might be a can or bottle in there...

Some have suggested putting the deposit value up, say 50c.

4/n

The idea being it people will be more inclined to actually hang on to the bottle and return it properly if it's worth more. Unfortunately, this completely fails to recognise what the actual failure of the system is.

It's too difficult to return the bottle or can. Last summer I bought a 500ml bottle of drink at a gas station 1km from the German border. I drank it all there and then cos it was hot. I couldn't return it to the gas station. There wasn't a Dutch supermarket easily on my route.

5/n

I ended up carrying that bottle for 160km on my bike and returning it with my other empties as part of a normal grocery shop. But most people won't do that. Further on that cycle trip, I bought a bottle of the same drink from the same brand of gas station in Germany. Drank it all, handed it back, and got 25c in coins. It was easy, it was quick. It worked as intended.

The system as it is in .NL needs to be changed such that all places selling bottles/cans with deposit, must accept returns.

6/n

This will make it easier for people do "do the right thing". It will act as the law intended. Reducing litter, and getting people to return their bottles themselves to claim the deposit, reducing what's available for people to find by ransacking bins.

So why have I done a 7 part and growing thread about bottle returns in the Netherlands?

First off, thanks for reading if you've stuck this far.

Secondly:

7/n

This shows a lot about how hard it is to get people to "do the right thing". In most cases people want to do the right thing. Who doesn't want to have less litter, to have a nicer environment. But the vast majority of people aren't going to take actions to do so unless it's easy to do so. Are you going to carry an empty bottle around in your bag until you goto a supermarket just for the sake of 15c? Most people won't. But if you can walk back into the shop you just bought it from...

8/n

then you might make the effort to go and get your money back.

This extrapolates to many other areas. People want to reduce their environmental impact, moving away from fossil fuels. But it's really hard. In many regards we're still in the early adopter stage for a lot of green technologies. Switching to a heat pump is not an easy thing to do, it's not a like for like replacement and it requires effort. So people go for what they know, and what is easy, and install a gas boiler.

9/n

(This is compounded even more so by the fact that for many a heating system is a distress purchase, and they don't have the ability to make a planned and thought out purchase, but that's a different thread).

Public transport is another example. Many people would happily take public transport to work so they don't have to sit in traffic jams. But they aren't going to do so if it's more expensive. Takes longer, doesn't run frequently enough, or stops too early.

10/n

@quixoticgeek I hear ya on the difficulty of public transport!

I only got my drivers licence last year, as I’ve always lived in places with good and dense public transport, I’m a firm believer in public transport, a greenie, etc. etc.

Even so: I was shocked _how_ _much_ _harder_ we’ve been making our lives all these years. Yeesh, so much more time sunk into transportation, the inaccessibility of certain places, dragging a family around… never mind the height of COVID… 1/n

@quixoticgeek …now that I have my licence, and am signed up to car sharing schemes, I strategically use a car (we have a MyWheels EV that lives in our neighbourhood 👍), and I’ve been tracking km and cost.

Second shock: cars are expensive! Never mind not _wanting_ to own a car, it wouldn’t make financial sense for me to own a car - car sharing is much much cheaper!

The only way owning a car makes financial sense (outside emotions & vibes) is if you need it to commute several days/week. 2/n

@quixoticgeek Third shock: public transport in NL is often cheaper still, even with a family of four[1]. Going away for a weekend to, say, somewhere ~150 km away costs about 50% to 75% of what a shared car costs.

Public transport is expensive compared to the delta-costs for additional car travel, for people who have already paid for the car & everything. On its own, it’s not so bad at all[2].

[1] Granted, one still travels for free. The others have discount cards.

3/n

@quixoticgeek [2] From keeping track over the last few 1000 km of car use: the way we use a shared car costs us about €0.50/km on average, everything included. At one point I started calculating NS’s per-km price, but that got a bit hairy, so take for example a single to Arnhem: that costs me €16.88, and by car it’s 135 km. Using the average cost/km that’s ex aequo for four, cheaper by train for three, plus if you stay a weekend you may pay a bit more than the €0.50/km.

4/n, n=4.