Separating your waste as best as possible will pay off in the municipality of Coevorden. From January 1, 2025, residents of this municipality will have to pay a fixed amount every time they put their residual waste container on the road.
Coevorden wants to introduce this system – also known as diftar – to reduce the amount of residual waste. The city council still has to approve the plan.
“What we actually do is give people a financial incentive to separate their waste better,” says spokesperson René Nanninga of the municipality of Coevorden. “Because the less residual waste you have, the less quickly the gray wheelie bin will fill up.”
From 2025, residents will then pay a fixed amount each time the gray wheelie bin is emptied or each time a waste bag is thrown into an underground residual waste container. The fixed amount has not yet been determined. Example rates mentioned are 7 euros per wheelie bin and 1.75 euros per residual waste bag.
According to him, the system already works well in other municipalities. “We can learn from the experiences that other municipalities have gained and we see in other municipalities that diftar can lead to significantly less household residual waste in the short term. We see that it is becoming a sport for many people to separate more waste.” According to him, it is a “fair principle”, where the polluter pays.
According to the municipality, the latter is urgently needed. RTV Drenthe recently reported that the average amount of residual waste per inhabitant in this municipality is still too high. Coevorden’s goal is that from 2028, a maximum of 100 kilos of residual waste per resident will be returned per year. Last year that average was 160 kilos per inhabitant. According to the municipality, steps had already been taken in recent years to motivate residents to reduce their waste volume, but given the pace of the reduction that has now been achieved, more action is needed.
There is a second reason for the municipality to now choose diftar, the spokesperson continues. “With this system we also see more opportunities to keep waste processing costs affordable.”
It is expected that it will become more expensive for the municipality to collect and process waste from 2025. These extra costs would then have to be passed on in the municipal waste tax. “With the new tariff system for residual waste, we can try to prevent the latter.”
The new rule does not apply to everyone: residents with a tight budget or other vulnerable groups, for example, may be eligible for remission. For families with diapers, the municipality places special diaper containers in the neighborhoods, which can be used free of charge. And residents with medical waste do not have to pay for residual waste a certain number of times a year.
The plan is still before the Coevorden municipal council, which must give it a final vote in December. The introduction of diftar now requires a one-off investment of 360,000 euros to provide the wheelie bins with a chip.
Apart from introducing the payment system, Coevorden also wants to make additional efforts to reduce residual waste in other ways in the near future. This is mainly done by making the collection of other forms of waste easier by installing additional underground containers.
The municipality wants to improve waste collection, especially in the city center of Coevorden and at high-rise complexes.