2023-07-01 22:00:55
From Saturday you pay a surcharge for disposable plastic cups or trays. It should also be possible everywhere to get your coffee in a reusable cup. It is better for the climate, if we do reuse it properly.
At McDonald’s, customers can now pay 25 euro cents for a disposable cup. But with reusable cups you don’t have to arrive at the fast food chain. To make them, more plastic is needed than for the disposable cups, McDonald’s told NU.nl last week “Moreover, they have to be washed, which costs water and energy.”
When asked, a spokesperson explains that McDonald’s sees more benefit in improved recycling of disposable cups. “Especially because we see that in Germany 70 percent of the returnable cups do not return. So we don’t think this is the solution.”
Experts are critical of that attitude. “If you set up a reuse system properly, it can certainly make a difference,” says packaging expert Marcel Keuenhof of the Knowledge Institute for Sustainable Packaging. According to him, that can take a while, because we are so used to disposable products. “We have been setting up our system for this for decades.”
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Beer bottle shows how it’s done
It is true that more plastic is needed for a reusable cup, and energy is needed to wash it. But if the cup is reused often enough, it really is better for the climate. The disposable cup usually ends up in the incinerator, where CO2 is released. Even if it is recycled, it also uses a lot of energy.
Depending on the materials used, a reusable cup must be reused five to several dozen times to be more climate-friendly, according to to research. It is therefore important that customers are encouraged to use their own cups often and to actually return returnable cups.
The glass beer bottle proves that reuse is possible. “We in the Netherlands have known for decades that you bring it back,” says Keuenhof. According to Environment Central 99 percent of the beer bottles are handed in and can be refilled forty times. This results in significant CO2 savings.
‘Make consumers think’
It is no problem that the measures against disposable plastic are now generating discussion among citizens and companies, says behavioral scientist Reint Jan Renes of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. “It gets everyone into action, but it also makes you think. It’s suddenly less obvious that we throw things away. That’s the next step in the transition.”
Renes refers to the ban on free plastic bags, which was introduced in 2016. There was a lot of discussion about this, and the VVD, for example, called it “superfluous and patronising”. “But as soon as such a rule is implemented, everyone will comply anyway,” says the behavioral scientist. “Now most people take a bag to the store, that has become part of the system.”
Just two years after the measure was introduced, stores gave 80 percent fewer bags to customers. It turned out that 60 percent fewer plastic bags ended up in litter research.
‘Disposal will be weird in ten years’ time’
Keuenhof says he understands the resistance of entrepreneurs and citizens. For some catering establishments, major adjustments are required to clean reusable cups and trays, or to have them cleaned. For the consumer, a deposit can be an extra cost item, or less convenient. “If you go home and you take a milkshake cup with you, you’ll have it in your car. When do you return it?”
Even so, according to the packaging expert, it is a matter of getting used to before we start to consider that normal. “In the past, everyone used to smoke at parties in the house, now everyone automatically goes outside. In ten years’ time, children will also find it strange if you just throw away a cup.”
New plastic rules
Thanks to various rules, disposable plastics are disappearing in more and more places, or we have to pay for them.
Since 2016 we pay at the supermarket and on the market for a plastic bag.
Since July 2021 plastic straws, cotton swabs and plates are prohibited. The same goes for Styrofoam food bowls. Since this month there is also a deposit on small plastic bottles.
Since January 2023 producers of plastic packaging must pay for cleaning up litter.
From July 1, 2023 we pay a surcharge on disposable cups and containers for takeaway meals and beverages. Catering and shops must now also offer a reusable alternative.
From January 1, 2024 the disposable cup is prohibited in offices, at events and at sports clubs. Restaurants may also only serve reusable trays and cups to customers in the business or on the terrace.
From July 3, 2024 the cap must remain on a plastic bottle or drinking container. That way he doesn’t end up in the litter. This is already the case with some bottles.
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