Consumers ripped off as much as $100m in cash-for-cans recycling scheme
PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian has admitted the government has “more work to do” to improve the cash for cans recycling scheme, after The Daily Telegraph revealed consumers have been short changed by as much as $100 million by the program.
NSW
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PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian has admitted the government has “more work to do” to improve the cash for cans recycling scheme, after The Daily Telegraph revealed consumers have been short changed by as much as $100 million so by the program.
Ms Berejiklian said the government wanted to continue to make it easier for consumers to return cans and bottles to get money back under the program.
Responding to The Daily Telegraph’s story, Ms Berejiklian said “there is no doubt this program had major teething problems”.
“We appreciate there’s more work to do in terms of collection points and making them more accessible,” she said.
“That’s what people want. The fact people want more collection points is a positive that means people want to use the scheme.”
She said the scheme has come a long way from when it was first rolled out, with 87 million cans now returned, and she expected it to continue improving.
She said it wasn’t at a “steady state” yet and she intended to get to a point where she could “hand on heart” say it was working.
Ms Berejiklian said the scheme was “worth it” for consumers because “at the end of the day all of us want to see litter reduction”.
The government is aiming to reduce litter by 40 per cent.
This morning, The Daily Telegraph revealed it has learned that in the first 10 weeks of the recycling scheme just $8.3 million was handed back to consumers in container refunds.
This was despite the public being slugged up to $110 million in higher beverage prices by suppliers who began passing on the cost of recycling at the start of the scheme.
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It’s the latest twist in a program dogged by a bungled roll out on December 1 when only half of the promised bottle and can return points were ready.
Shoppers are paying up to $4 extra for a carton of beer or soft drink under the scheme and can recoup 10c per bottle or can if they can find collection points that will take them for recycling.
So far 83 million cans and bottles have been returned, less than 10 per cent of eligible containers sold.
Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said the “scheme was never designed to capture all the drink containers purchased in NSW.”
She said the number of drink containers returned were estimated in the early days of the scheme, and would become more predictable later.
Ms Upton said charges by Exchange for Change, the scheme’s co-ordinator which collects the money, are “tightly controlled” and there was “no scope for profiteering”.
But already one beverage company, Lion, has indicated in plans to halve the container deposit scheme fee it was passing on to consumers as a result of money paid back from the scheme’s operator.
Opposition environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said the scheme was hurting families. “The Minister’s bungling of this scheme has hit the hip pocket of every consumer in NSW,” she said. Families were paying up to $30 a week more for drinks, but struggled to get refunds, she added.
Ms Upton last night said 400 collection points were operating, including 111 reverse vending machine kiosks.