With federal and state environment ministers meeting this month to discuss a 10-cent refund on bottles and cans, Total Environment Centre executive director Jeff Angel has spelt out what a container deposit scheme (CDS) might look like to councils.
While Queensland has declared it will not join such a scheme, the other states are open to persuasion after years of refusing. South Australia has had a CDS for 36 years.
In August, ministers agreed to prepare a regulatory impact statement on a CDS and to look at the model proposed by the Boomerang Alliance, a collection of 22 environmental groups.
The beverage industry has been trying to scuttle the scheme, calling it a ”tax” and legally challenging the new container deposit scheme in the Northern Territory.
Australians use 13 billion containers a year but only 40 per cent are recycled. The rest become litter or landfill.
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