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Why do we need CD?Australia, outside of South Australia, has low rates of recycling by international standards. While SA recycles 85% of its containers the rest of the country is between 20-40%. Only countries and states that have CD systems have high recycling rates. Recycling in Australia is concentrated on kerbside recovery. This is fine for products consumed at home, but over 50% of products are now consumed away from home. CD acts, particularly, to capture this away-from-home packaging. CD also means no more littered cans and bottles floating in rivers, lying on streets etc. Would you leave money sitting around on the ground? CD is also a good way to get people involved in protecting the environment by motivating them to recycle more and litter less.
The newly named Packaging Stewardship Forum (PSF) has a long history and is just the latest front group for the beverage and packaging industries. For a detailed briefing on these organizations go here... Formerly titled BIEC, the Beverage Industry Environment Council, and previous to that the Litter Research Association, the industry has also funded Keep Australia Beautiful (KAB). Some state based KAB’s are highly effective and some are simply an extension of the industry. Famously, during the 1970’s, the industry funded the ‘Do the Right Thing’ campaign. We will most of us remember the jingle and see it as an effective campaign to encourage good litter behavior, which it probably did. At the same time the campaign was paid for by industry to shift all responsibility for post consumer packaging waste to the consumer and in order to avoid CD systems spreading beyond South Australia. The campaign also focused solely on putting rubbish in the bin rather then recycling it.
While it is not unreasonable to expect producers of goods to pay something for the recovery of their product and its packaging – e.g. the computer and mobile phone industries will be expected to be involved in helping collect and recycle their used products – there is evidence to suggest a well designed CD scheme does not have to cost industry anything at all. See boomerangalliance.org for further information in the ‘who pays what’ report. To support their case the industry has developed a series of arguments and myths to deter government from implementing what is obviously a sound environmental policy. Outlined below are a few and check out bottlebill.org/about_bb/mythfact for more. 1. CD will destroy kerbside recycling services and CD and kerbside can’t coexist. If it were the case that CD would jeopardize kerbside then local government, who operate kerbside recycling services, would be expected to oppose CD. In fact the West Australian Local Government Association (as with other local governments around Australia) publicly supports CD. A CD system will remove material from the kerbside bin. But rather then destroying kerbside services it could make it for the first time financially viable for local government. Less material in the bins means less kerbside pick ups - saving local government money; less contamination (bits of broken glass or split liquids and food) of kerbside materials, particularly of paper; and less broken glass which is un-recyclable Kerbside in Australia is largely underpinned by recycled paper prices and this will still be collected from people’s homes. The following states all operate both a CD and kerbside program proving that the two schemes can operate in tandem; - California 2. CD will place an unnecessary cost burden on consumers Industry often claims that the refundable deposit is a cost to the consumer. So, for instance, a bottle of soft drink will rise in price by 5 or 10 or 20 cents. This is of course a ridiculous notion. A deposit is obviously returned when the consumer hands their container back for recycling. To describe the deposit as a cost is mischief making at best. In fact CD is a true polluter pays model as the only person charged is the person that still litters or doesn’t recycle and who then forfeits their deposit. 3. CD is an old idea, that’s not relevant to the modern day. In fact the following table shows states that have only recently adopted or expanded a CD scheme: 4. Containers are only a small part of the problem so why worry about them. The packaging industry attempts to avoid responsibility by suggesting beverage containers make up only a small percentage of the waste stream. In fact in NSW beverage containers make up around 30% of the litter stream by volume (as opposed to number). In any case if you can effectively deal with containers why not do it? Just because other products might be more difficult to collect and recycle doesn’t mean cans and bottles should also be left lying around.
It’s well known that Coca-Cola and other company executives have been lobbying the WA parliament and Ministers in order to derail CD in WA. Most recently also, after the Victorian Liberal Party announced they would, if elected, introduce CD in Victoria, the industry, through the Australian Food & Grocery Council (AFGC) ran a scare campaign against it. The AFGC attempted to frighten the public and politicians by suggesting a 20 cent deposit would result in a carton of beer rising in price by $5. In the first instance, while a 20 cent deposit is possible it’s more likely to be 10 cents; secondly, to try and suggest a refundable deposit was a cost to the consumer is highly misleading, as the deposit is of course returned to the consumer when they recycle their containers. The Boomerang Alliance wrote to all members of the AFGC about this issue, you can see this letter at boomerangalliance.org.
See bottlebill.org for a good background on the industry push in Florida. -- Find out how to TAKE ACTION NOW  |
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