Glas & Papier

Public cannisters for recycling papier (paper), glas (glass), clothes, etc. are ubiquitous on the residential streetcorners of Amsterdam.

Statiegeld is the word applied to deposits on beverage containers. A beer bottle has a certain statiegeld value; a full crate has the quantity value plus some extra for the plastic container.

From the book, The Undutchables, "In a well publicized incident, a Dutch boy lifted a quantity of bottled refreshments from a shop. He immediately deposited them in the store's recycling machine, thereby destroying the evidence of this crime and was dully rewarded for his environmental efforts in cash.

"For years, Holland enjoyed the dubious honour of being the statiegeldtoerisme center of Europe. Dutch supermarkets near the Belgian and German borders forked out mini-fortunes to cunning cloggies who crossed over to collect empties (which were worthless in Belgium and Germany) and turn them in for statiegeld once they were back in Holland. Plastic bottles were especially desirable since they were light and worth a guilder (45 euro cents) each.

"For discarding different types of glassware with no value, there are colour-coded recycling bins on street corners. You may have to wait your turn to use these bins since it requires some studying before throwing bottles away. The owners want to make sure first that they don't ruin themselves financially by inadvertantly throwing away a bottle for which they paid statiegeld."

Notice bicyclers and bicycles in the background. They are just part of the landscape in the Netherlands, with over 16.5 million of them, in a country where 91 percent of households own at least one. More on bicycles later.