Dutch government wants more municipalities to separate food and garden waste

The Dutch government wants to remove an exemption that allows some municipalities to collect food and garden waste with other rubbish, arguing that more consistent separation could make reusable materials easier to recover.

The exemption applies when separate collection is technically impossible or very costly. In a letter to the House of Representatives, Climate Minister Stientje van Veldhoven said scrapping it could make waste collection more consistent for residents and increase the amount of separately collected organic waste.

Van Veldhoven says that waste can yield useful materials such as phosphate or be used to produce green gas. The cabinet is still developing the proposals and expects to work them out over the coming months.

The minister is also considering a mandatory national charge for residual waste, but only after the organic-waste measure takes effect. Other proposals include clearer rules on what belongs in plastic waste, potentially requiring schools to separate rubbish, and asking businesses to keep different waste streams apart. The article does not set out how the proposed business requirement would work.

Van Veldhoven says recyclable materials make up an average of 80 per cent of residual waste. She wants better sorting as well as separation, to reduce the amount of potentially reusable material sent for incineration.