Employees of waste processor Attero in Wijster have, just like colleagues in other parts of the country, closed the company’s weighbridge. Trucks with waste are not allowed for three hours and cannot hand over their waste. It is a protest against the possible introduction of a new taxation on plastic waste processing.
“This plan just has to be taken off the table,” says Hanan Yagoubi, director of FNV Public Interest. “This extra tax of 73 euros per tonne of residual waste makes the processing of residual flows unaffordable, drives waste abroad, does not lead to sustainability and increases the citizen’s waste tax. We will all brands this in the wallet.”
From 2028, the government wants to raise 547 million euros annually with a taxation on plastic. Originally the plastic industry would pay for that, but because this causes problems because of international competition, the government also looks at the waste sector. There must be taxation on plastic waste processing.
According to the FNV, this is a bad plan. “Waste processing in the Netherlands is already the most tax taxed in Europe,” Yagoubi explains. “We have an extremely high waste tax and an unattainable national CO2 levy. A third tax may now be added. This is the death blow for the sector. It will soon be cheaper to bring your waste abroad.”
The closure today is a first warning. “If politics does not want to listen to our concerns, more actions will follow,” warns the FNV. It demands that the government announces on Wednesday that plastic tax is not collected from the waste processing sector.
“If this plan remains, we will go beyond a blockade of three hours. Then we really make the Netherlands aware of what it means when waste is no longer processed,” warns Yagoubi, “because we don’t just let our recycling and waste companies fall over by poor government policy.”