Fury at cash-for-trash bill

A PROPOSED cash-for-containers bill has raised concern it will increase council rates and threaten household recycling collections.

recycling

A PROPOSED cash-for-containers bill has raised concern it will increase council rates and threaten household recycling collections.

Greens MP Cate Faehrmann and Independent Clover Moore plan to introduce a co-sponsored Waste Avoidance beverage container bill that will see containers and cans receive 10 cents on return to depots.

"Turning containers into cash gives more incentive for people to recycle," said Ms Faehrmann. "They reduce litter, stop billions of containers from going to landfill and reduce clean-up costs to local government."

But the proposal has come under fire by Keep Australia Beautiful who believe the scheme will undermine existing kerbside recycling and add more cost to councils.

KAB boss Don Chambers said: "By bringing in this scheme on top of the kerbside collection you will remove the valuable items from the kerbside system and councils still have to collect the other matter, so we estimate a 20 to 40 per cent increase on costs."

The beverage industry has warned it could send the cost of a can of coke up by 20c and a slab of beer by as much as $4.

"There's additional cost in running the system because of the collection depots, consumers are paying 20 cents more but only getting 10 cents back," said Jenny Pickles from the Packaging Stewardship Forum, a branch of the Australian Food and Grocery Council.

Clover Moore argued her figures showed there would be over $60 million in savings for NSW councils in the long run.

The Greens accused the beverage industry of employing scare tactics. "When it comes to scare tactics from the multi-billion dollar beverage industry, we've seen it all before, and we can expect it to begin again now we've said we'll introduce a scheme," Ms Faehrmann said.

A similar bill introduced in the Northern Territory in January this year has been plagued with teething problems. Despite favourable community participation, four recycling depots have closed their doors because of a dispute over handling fees with companies like Lion Nathan and CocaCola Amatil.

NT Recycling Solutions managing director Leon Schulz pays 10c per container but the handling fee from the beverage industry is not viable he says, so he has closed three depots.

Former Australian of the year and Clean Up Australia campaigner Ian Kiernan said the scheme which has run in South Australia for 30 years resulted in a 80 to 90 per cent recovery rate whereas the recovery rate for containers in NSW was just 35 per cent.