Requires increased bottle deposit and information campaign

The Norwegian Environmental Protection Association (NMF) demands that the bottle deposit be increased on aluminum cans and that the brewing industry be required to finance information campaigns that warn against the consequences of throwing such into nature. In 2014, Infinitum collected 415,988,355 recycling cans and 415,851,277 recycling bottles. In total, there are 831,839,632 bottles and cans. Infinitum has an approved collection rate of 95%. With approximately 416 million recycling boxes, however, the remaining 5% is a very high number. The number of recycling cans that are not collected thus amounts to over 20 million cans on an annual basis. Most of this probably ends up in residual waste bins. However, it must unfortunately be assumed that millions of aluminum cans disappear in Norwegian nature on an annual basis. Both in fjords, water and on land. On land, we often see that animals try to ingest leftover food in waste and thus also eat things they can die from. This can mean a slow and painful death for the animal. When soda cans and beer cans are thrown ashore, they can end up on a field and enter the forage harvester.

When aluminum cans end up in a feed harvester, the consequence is that the can is cut up into an enormous number of razor-sharp pieces of metal. The result can be small, razor-sharp aluminum fragments that are ground up and end up in the stomachs of animals that get food from the soil in question. The injuries will often be life-threatening, and the animal will suffer. Cows, sheep, pigs and other animals that eat this feed then ingest pieces of aluminium, which will unfortunately often cause damage to the esophagus and holes in the intestine with subsequent painful death. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency will assume that many people are not aware of the animal cruelty they cause when they throw away aluminum cans on agricultural fields.

It is therefore necessary that the brewing industry be required to implement information campaigns. Furthermore, less environmentally and animal protection-conscious people can also be influenced to recycle aluminum cans by raising the deposit rate. NOK 1 or 2.5 at today's rates is of completely marginal financial importance to most people.

By raising the rate to NOK 5 for all aluminum cans and bottles, presumably almost all returnable bottles and aluminum cans will be returned to the deposit machines. This will prevent the horrific death of more animals and at the same time benefit the environment in general.