From January 1, 2023, the glasses, lids, plugs and plastic containers that are used to contain drinks and food to arrive, either at the table of a burger or at the private home, will be charged separately to the customer. This is one of the dozens of measures included in the draft Law on Waste and Contaminated Soils that the Government will endorse this Tuesday and that it will send to Parliament for processing and approval.

The standard sets as a goal for 2030 that the use of new raw materials to produce goods in Spain be reduced by 30% -avoiding plundering nature- and that the amount of waste that is reused and recycled and returned to the production and consumption chain reaches at least 55% of the total in 2025, 60% in 2030, and 65% in 2035. Both strategies are committed to a circular and sustainable economy, which reduces the waste of materials, ends with the consumerist concept of using and throwing away, and minimizing the millions of tons of garbage that end up in landfills.

In short, it tries to turn around as quickly as possible what is the current Spanish dynamic, a mole within the European Union, which buries 53% of its waste in landfills and only reuses 35% (the half with recycling and the other half with composting). Of the 22 million tons of urban waste that Spain generates each year, not even 8 million are reused.

To achieve these objectives, the regulation, among its main measures, will prohibit the destruction of industrial surpluses, will declare war on single-use plastic, will reduce food waste, will maximize the selective collection at home, and will discourage easy recourse to landfills with taxes.

Reducing the amount of waste has to start with production itself, which should not only use more recycled materials but also not waste raw materials. It must be adjusted as much as possible to its possibilities of sale. The law will prohibit the destruction of surpluses (clothing, electrical appliances, electronics, toys, etc.), with incentives for donations or other alternative uses, and will require a longer useful life (guarantees and repairability).

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Another of the basic legs will be the war on single-use plastic. It only represents 10% of the waste, but it is one of the most polluting. As early as next July, by EU mandate, plates, glasses, cutlery, straws, cotton swabs, plastic removers and expanded polystyrene containers and glasses will disappear from shops and bars. With the aim of using as few bottles as possible, bars and restaurants will always be obliged to offer their customers glasses and jugs of tap water.

Green taxes

The idea of ​​the law is that it is less and less profitable to sell this product. If the standard is approved, producers of bottles and other non-recyclable plastic containers will have to pay a tax of 45 cents per kilo and each time they will have to weigh less (half that now in 2022 and 70% less in 2030).

But the bullying doesn't end there. From 2023, all glasses, lids and containers made of this material for takeaway drinks and meals will be charged separately to the customer, and a year and a half later (July 2024) containers of more than three liters cannot be sold. As of 2025, plastic bottles cannot be marketed unless they include at least 25% recycled material, which in 2030 should reach 30%. For that same year, recovery systems for these bottles will have had to be established, since 77% of those sold will have to be recycled, an amount that will reach 90% in 2029. One of the methods recommended by Ecological Transition is the deposit, return and return of containers, similar to what was formerly used for glass.

To the current mandatory selective collection of glass, paper and household packaging, organic waste will be added in 2022 (in 2024 in small towns), which will have their own container. This is something vital, since 40% of Spanish waste is biological and only 17% is recovered. It will be accompanied by a goal to reduce food waste by 20% by 2030 in homes and businesses.

Before New Year's Eve 2024, the law also requires that there be specific collections of used cooking oils, all kinds of textiles, bulky waste such as furniture and mattresses, and hazardous household waste (such as batteries or electronic devices ). From 2022 it will also be mandatory that wood, minerals, metals and glass be separated in works and demolitions, and before 2025 a minimum percentage of recovery of fishing gear will be set.

All these measures, which should facilitate greater recycling and reuse, will be accompanied by a tax that waste managers (public or private) must pay for the tons they take to landfills or incineration plants. The law will harmonize the rates that some autonomies already charge so that it is mandatory and similar for all communities, with the charge of between 1.5 and 40 euros per ton dumped, depending on the material. In short, it is about making landfill the least desirable option.