During carnival you hardly see people walking in their everyday clothes, which is a strange sight. It is completely strange when they move through a hustling and dancing crowd with a large catering garbage bag full of cans. Yet there is a good chance that you will encounter them, for example in Oeteldonk or Kielegat. “For us it has both advantages and disadvantages,” says the municipality of Den Bosch.
Oeteldonk. White, yellow and red wherever you look. A whole procession of carnival goers spreads from the central Visstraat through all the alleys and side streets to the pubs or beer hatches. Many revelers also like a drink during their trip to the pub. Quite a few cans of beer and mixed drinks are consumed. The cans then end up in one of the many trash bins that the municipality has set up.
But not for long. The lid of the waste bin has barely closed when someone swings it open again and fishes out the can. The empty beer can disappears into a very large blue garbage bag. This so-called deposit hunter swings the garbage bag over his shoulder and disappears into the crowd.
Residual waste on the street
There is a good chance that you, as a carnival goer, have already encountered such a person. Since the introduction of a deposit on cans, you increasingly see people fishing the cans out of the waste to hand them in. These deposit hunters cause nuisance in quite a few municipalities, Omroep Brabant wrote last year. A lucrative additional income, especially now during carnival.
“We indeed recognize this behavior,” a spokesperson for the municipality of Den Bosch said. “It has both advantages and disadvantages for us. If people collect the cans and hand them in, we are happy with that. That helps to keep the public space clean. When people start digging through the residual waste and throwing the waste on the street, Of course we are not happy with that.”
Tin ring in Breda
Since April 1, 2023, cans have also been subject to a deposit. Then it turned out that not everyone was waiting for a sticky can to take home. To accommodate so-called deposit hunters, the municipality of Breda participated in an experiment in the summer: placing special holders around waste bins. People could put their empty cans and bottles in there, after which others could hand them in. A good idea, but they were hardly used
The municipality of Breda also recognizes the deposit hunters during carnival. But a spokesperson cannot say how often these can chasers occur and whether they cause problems. It has not led to any problems in Den Bosch so far. “The waste is cleaned up daily,” the spokesperson said.
WE WROTE THIS PREVIOUSLY ABOUT CANS:
Deposit hunters are causing a mess in more and more places