Many residents have questions about waste and resources policy, waste separation and waste charges. This is understandable. Therefore, here you will find answers to frequently asked questions about the waste and raw materials policy.
Do you have another question? Ask us your question. We will do our best to answer your question to the best of our ability. And you help complete this list of frequently asked questions right away.
In our 4 municipalities, we still produced an average of 232 kilograms of residual waste per inhabitant per year in 2020. In the coming years, we will work even harder to produce less waste. We want to reduce the amount of residual waste to 100 kilograms per person per year in 2025.
Of the average 232 kilograms of waste per inhabitant per year, 70 per cent can be recycled into new products. For example, VGF waste becomes compost or green gas, old paper becomes new paper and from PMD we can make new packaging and products.
Since there are fewer and fewer raw materials, it is important that we reuse more. That way we need to extract fewer new materials from the earth. And less residual waste remains that we have to have incinerated. Also, the central government's incineration tax makes burning residual waste increasingly expensive. So less waste is important both for the environment and for your wallet.
Our 4 municipalities want to become more circular, meaning more recycling and less residual waste. The waste and raw materials policy contributes to achieving this goal.
We explicitly involved residents in the creation of the waste and raw materials policy. Wishes, motives and perceptions were inventoried in spring 2020 with a residents' survey. Good suggestions came out of this survey. We supplemented these suggestions with our suggestions and possible measures, and submitted them again in a second residents' survey in early 2021.
Central government's circular targets are set out in the National Waste Management Plan (LAP3). All governments must take these into account when performing their waste management tasks. This means they have to adopt central government's targets in local policy plans. There are no real sanctions for not meeting the national targets. However, central government has introduced an incineration tax for residual waste. By doing so, it encourages municipalities to separate waste as much as possible and thereby reduce residual waste. Municipalities that do not work on the circular economy and therefore have a lot of residual waste pay more incineration tax than municipalities that do work on the circular economy.
Since there are fewer and fewer raw materials, it is important that we reuse more. That way, we need to extract fewer new materials from the earth. To do this, we need to make changes together in all links of the chain: starting with the extraction of raw materials, the production of goods and (packaging) materials to the collection and processing of discarded goods and materials. If we take into account the processing of goods and packaging in the end-of-life phase at the beginning of the chain, we can together achieve a lot of circular gain.
The Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) and the Association of Waste Management Companies (VA) already exerts a lot of influence at the national level on producers to market reuse-friendly products and materials.
At the 2021-2025 strategy paper we propose a number of measures to increase the influence of our municipalities on the national discussion topics. Municipalities also have a responsibility to make maximum efforts to collect and reuse as many raw materials separately as possible.
Separate collection and processing of paper and cardboard, packaging glass and cans are already at a very high level. Around 85 per cent of these materials are already recycled. Separate collection of plastic packaging is comparatively new and still under development.
In the coming years, we will work to reduce waste. And we need your help to do so!
