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19 September 2021
World Cleanup Day 2021 in figures
Our suspicions have been confirmed; the deposit on plastic bottles introduced on 1st July of this year has indeed had immediate results. The proportion of bottles in the litter found has decreased by 37%!
- Most found items:
The obvious ‘winner’ of last year – the cigarette filter – is again at number 1. This is partly the result of the campaign by the Plastic Peuken Collective; people now know that cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic, and therefore must be disposed of and registered.
Candy wrappers are in the top 3, as they were last year. There can be quick environmental gains by replacing both cigarette filters and plastic wrappers with biodegradable variants. These types of plastic products disintegrate quickly into microplastics and can never be cleaned up.
- Most found brands:
Marlboro, Red Bull, and McDonald’s rank 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively, among manufacturers whose products contribute the most to litter.
- Most Found Material Type:
Once again, plastic is by far the most commonly found material type. This confirms the need to find alternatives to disposable plastic in particular.
- Newcomers:
The so-called COVID litter can be found in our statistics for the first time, with gloves in 9th place and face masks in 10th.
Now for the cans…
As of 31st December 2022, there will also be a deposit on cans. So it is expected that Red Bull, Heineken, and CocaCola will lead the World Cleanup Day rankings next year for the very last time.
Plastic Soup Foundation would like to see the introduction of a deposit accompanied by a collection obligation for supermarkets. By far the most cans and plastic bottles (about 80%) are sold by supermarkets. It is therefore logical that they also take responsibility for collecting them.
Unfortunately, after negotiations with the business community, the government has decided to remove this collection obligation for points of sale. In almost all other countries with deposit systems, such as Germany, Norway, and Lithuania, collecting is a legal obligation. The collection is also required by law in Scotland, where a deposit on bottles and cans will be introduced from 1st July 2022.
People’s Movement
In the four years that Plastic Soup Foundation has been organizing the Dutch edition of World Cleanup Day – the most extensive cleanup action globally – the event has also grown in size in our country.
Yesterday in the Netherlands, the record number of 41,342 officially registered participants, divided into 1574 different actions, set out to clean up litter. And that is only part of the actual number of participants. The second edition of the special school day last Wednesday was also a great success; over 200 schools organized a cleanup action.
“World Cleanup Day is a real grassroots movement. Litter always scores high as one of the biggest annoyances, and more and more people are taking action themselves. This gives our organization not only the necessary support but also a large amount of data to hold manufacturers accountable for the entire life cycle of their products.“
Maria Westerbos, Director, Plastic Soup Foundation
Would you like to know more about World Cleanup Day NL? Then click here: www.worldcleanupday.nl.
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