NETHERLANDS: EXEMPTION OF PLASTIC BOTTLE DEPOSIT MONEY ORDER The following notification is being circulated in accordance with Article 10.6. G/TBT/Notif.97.234. 1. Member to Agreement notifying: NETHERLANDS. If applicable, name of local government involved (Articles 3.2 and 7.2). 2. Agency responsible: Bedrijfechap Frisdranken en Waters. Agency or authority designated to handle comments regarding the notification can be indicated if different from above: National Enquiry Point. 3. Notified under Article 2.9.2. 4. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading. ICS numbers may be provided in addition, where applicable): Soft drinks and waters. 5. Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document: Exemption of Plastic Bottle Deposit Money Order. 6. Description of content: The deposit money order is being exempted in order to enable a test to be carried out involving sale of one-way plastic bottles with a maximum content of 0.5 litre without deposit. The test is taking place in the so-called grey sales channel, i.e. not the hotel and catering sector and not the supermarket channel. The test will run until 1 March 1998 and aims to examine to what extent sales of soft drinks and waters in this channel would be enhanced by the removal of the obligation to impose a deposit. Interested businesses within the Netherlands and abroad should, on a confidential basis, make available their sales figures concerning the bottles in question over the period of the test. The quantity in litres of soft drinks and waters sold must not exceed a level of 3 percent of the total number of litres of soft drinks and waters sold in the Netherlands in 1995. 7. Objective and rationale: Dutch environmental policy is not in favour of the sale of soft drinks and waters in one-way no-deposit plastic packaging since there is no other effective method of collecting plastic packaging waste. In the so-called grey channel in particular soft drinks and waters appear as a result to have lost ground with regard to competing drinks. The present test aims to examine whether this is the case. At the end of the test period it will be considered on the basis of the test results whether the policy should and can be adjusted. 8. Relevant documents: Soft Drinks and Waters Commodity Board Deposit Order -- Business Organization Act. 9. Proposed date of adoption: 1 August 1997; Proposed date of entry into force: 1 August 1997. 10. Final date for comments: 22 July 1997. 11. Text available from: National enquiry point. (0161)

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