In November, Spain is supposed to force stores to charge an amount for each bottle and can sold. It is supposed

Something ticks inside every yellow recycling bin and the noise perfectly reaches newsrooms across the country. Hence the articles, pieces and reports that They say that “starting in November the stores will charge” for each plastic bottle.

The good news is that yes, the law says that. The bad news is that where the ticking does not reach is the power centers of Madrid capital.

What’s happening? Indeed, the Waste Law of 2022 obliges Spain to have a Deposit, Return and Return System (SDDR) for plastic bottles, cans and beverage bricks operational as of November 22, 2026. And the reason is simple: the country had to recycle 70% of everything introduced into the market by 2023 and we did not achieve it.

Faced with this possibility, the legislator was clear: the current system had to be abandoned and the packaging return system adopted (the one that charges a deposit for each container and returns it later). Portugal found itself in a similar situation and just introduced the European system.

So? What is the problem? The truth is that we have no shortage of problems. To begin with, measuring how we really recycle. For years, stakeholders claimed that recycling rates were close to 80%; However, in 2024, the General Subdirectorate of Waste prepared a report relating to the calculation of the separate collection of SUP bottles for beverages that lowered that figure to 41.3% (well below the 70% required).

The second problem is regulation. Following the Law, in May 2025, four organizations (Ecoembes, AECOC, Procircular and CorePET) They asked the Community of Madrid that authorized them as Collective Systems of Extended Producer Responsibility in charge of managing the SDDR. The Community is the competent one since the organizations have their headquarters there.

And then? Then nothing. Madrid legally had six months to resolve the request; but it granted itself an extension of another six months that would end next month.

However, the Ministry of the Environment has already explained that they have no intention of doing anything because of the “legal uncertainty (that it entails), since adequate and sufficient regulations have not been developed at the state level.” MITECO, for its part, responds that there is no insecurity and that they are not going to do anything more.

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking.

Nobody knows anything. While the CAM runs out of its extension, there are less than seven months left before we begin to break the Law and all scenarios are on the table: from a quick solution to a blockade that delayed everything two or three more years (most likely).

What is out of the question is that there is no political will to implement this and nothing suggests that this will change. If you had to bet and taking into account that Spain is the country with the most cases of infractions for not transposing community regulationsit would be surprising if the SDDR started in November of this year.

Image | James Lo

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