EU ban on microplastics in cosmetics: too slow and too limited
Cosmetics companies selling personal care products without microplastics are calling for the swift introduction of a total ban in an open letter.
At no. 2: the cans of Heineken
September 2019: Cans, cans, cans… Just walk around your neighbourhood and you’ll just stumble over the discarded cans. No wonder they are both on the 1st and 2nd place of last year’s World Cleanup Day most found litter. The largest beer brewer in our country is a ‘top scorer’.
Last year 241 million hectoliters of Heerlijk Helder Heineken was gulped down worldwide, but whereas the drink of the gods goes down very smoothly with all those beer lovers, the effect of all discarded cans on animals is horrible. Every year four thousand cows are killed in the Netherlands alone. This is how: the cans thrown into the verge are crushed together with the cut grass into feed, after which the sharp pieces of metal cause serious internal injuries to cows and other livestock.
No less than 60% of Dutch farmers are struggling with this problem. A reason for agricultural organization LTO to join the Deposit Money Alliance, which promotes deposits on PET bottles and cans. The deposit scheme on plastic bottles will actually be introduced in 2021, and thanks to the farmers’ lobby there is now also a majority in Dutch parliament for the introduction of deposits on cans. Hopefully, that will happen soon, because otherwise the soft drink producers might switch from plastic bottles to cans.
Marketing stunt
Heineken is certainly working on a sustainability agenda and hopes to be fully circular in the Netherlands by 2030. The brewer has also signed the European Plastic Pact. And although the intended goal sounds very noble – a 20% reduction in plastic by 2025 – there’s something lying in the grass here too: a snag.
The Plastic Pact has been signed on a voluntary basis only. All legal obligations – which were included in the previously concluded Packaging Covenant – have been left out. Reason for former civil servant Kees Clement to give his frank opinion in the Dutch tv programme Nieuwsuur and to call the Pact ‘a marketing stunt’. Plastic Soup Foundation agrees with him and therefore did not sign the Plastic Pact.
Biertje?
But to be fair, no matter how seriously producers like Heineken take their ‘extended producer responsibility’, it’s the consumers who casually discard their cans in the streets. Maybe Heineken should accompany the return of the old Dutch slogan Biertje? with the question: Trash can?
– Elles Tukker, Communications Manager, Plastic Soup Foundation
Will you join World Cleanup Day? Take a look at www.worldcleanupday.nl to see the cleanup actions that have already been set up in your neighbourhood or put a cleanup action on the map yourself!
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