The Dutch National Bin Count

As litter pickers, we know that deposit is working. From the moment deposit was introduced on bottles, the number of bottles found on the streets dropped dramatically. And the same goes for deposit on cans.

However, there is also a downside to deposit. Some people are used to throwing the empty bottles or cans in the bins, like they were supposed to do, but they still do, even with the deposit on the item. Some just can't be bothered with holding on to a leaking can but 15 cents in return. Unlike some other people who are happy to collect those, and pick them from the streets, or out of the bins. And unfortunately, some go a little further and demolish the bins to get to the good stuff and pull everything out of the bin, just to make sure they did not miss a bottle or a can.

Some countries are about to introduce deposit, but some people are against it. "Just look what happened in the Netherlands, all the bins are demolished, don't introduce deposit".

It is an easy thing to say, but is it the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? The Plastic Avengers started a new event and asked all volunteers to take pictures of all bins in their area and they investigated how many were broken or not. And of course, the LitterApp-litter pickers helped out again. We collected the pictures as well, and made sure that the Plastic Avengers got those as well. So apart from all the litter, we can also show the REAL state of the bins in (a part of) the Netherlands. (conclusion from the report: the problem is real, but mainly a problem in the bigger cities. Overall, deposit on items is working great).