Scrapped plastic tax will result in higher waste costs for citizens, sector warns

Citizens will likely pay for the government’s decision to scrap the plastic tax from the climate plan. The government is losing out on over 500 million euros as a result, part of which will be passed on to waste processors and municipalities. And that will probably lead to waste tax increasing by a few tens of euros per year, the Royal Dutch Association of Waste and Cleaning Services (NVRD) warned, NOS reports.

On Friday, Minister Sophie Hermans of Climate and Green Growth (VVD) presented the government’s climate plans. These include scrapping plans to implement the polymer levy - the tax on plastic. This tax was part of the coalition agreement, and the 567 million euros it was supposed to yield were already in the books.

The government wants to cover part of the resulting gap by reforming the waste tax and with revenues from the CO2 tax. For the remaining 167 million, the government is planning a “plastic table” where parties from the plastics sector must come up with a solution by August.

But according to the NVRD, industrial companies are overrepresented at this table. “Mainly industry, too few municipalities, social partners, and recyclers,” NVRD director Wendy de Wild told NOS. “If this table does not reach an agreement, the bill will be passed on to the citizen. It is made too easy for the industry to avoid responsibility.”

The polymer levy was supposed to tax plastic production more heavily. Plastic is made from oil, requires a lot of energy to produce, and the end product is typically not sustainable, with single-use plastic being a particular problem. The government planned to levy this tax at the start of the plastic chain, at chemical and plastic companies. But these companies complained of unfair advantage for competitors in countries that don’t levy this tax. The government gave in.

And as a result, the tax will likely end up with the citizen, De Wild said. "If the plastic table comes to nothing, those costs will be passed on to waste processors and municipalities, who will most likely pass that on in their waste tax. That is a bad idea, that is not where the responsibility lies."