Picking up a plastic bottle from the side of the road or in a park could mean money in your pocket if the draft Law on Residues passes into vigor in its current form.
Currently the consumer foots the 500 million euro bill for recycling rubbish in Spain and the system doesn´t work, according to Teresa Ribere, Secretary of State for Climatic Change and Environmental Quality, who says Spain has a “serious rubbish disposal problem.” She adds that out of the 23 million tons of urban residues collected only 15% is separated correctly.
Now the Government is proposing bringing back the system of small deposits on bottles and plastic containers with 25 cents refundable when the consumer returns the item to a commercial outlet or deposit. The system has proved highly successful in Germany where some 98% of containers and bottles are collected and recycled.
According to the Government it could also bring an end to the grave litter problem in Spain where plastic containers and bottles litter the countryside, the parks and the roadsides as picking them up could prove a profitable exercise.
THE DEMISE OF THE PLASTIC BAG
By 2018 the single use plastic carrier bag provided by shops, supermarkets and other commercial outlets will disappear.
Although the plastic bag industry in Spain claims the move will result in the loss of between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs the Government views the plastic carrier bag as an “unsustainable generation of rubbish.”
A complete prohibition on the provision and use of the bags was to be introduced by 2010 but this deadline has now been extended by eight years to 2018.
