‘Costs’ of recycling are an inconvenient lie - 21 May 2009

Senator Scott Ludlam, Colleen Hartland MLC (Vic) and Ian Cohen MLC (NSW) are three Greens politicians who are using Private Member’s Bills to enact Container Deposit Legislation at both state and Federal level.

Federal and State Greens MPs are calling on Friday’s meeting of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) to cut through the misinformation on container deposit schemes.

“More than 90% of the community support the introduction of a deposit scheme, yet industry critics have invented something called 'the inconvenience cost’ – the time and expense involved for people to redeem their deposit. Removing this imaginary cost from the cost/benefit analysis reduces the estimated cost of a deposit scheme by 45%,” says Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.

“The costs are further defrayed when we remove the misconception that collection depots will only collect beverage containers. Collection depots could be easily extended to number of other recyclables including electronic waste and batteries. The packaging industry needs to take a good look at the tactics it is running to try and defeat the scheme, which has overwhelming community support. You can't threaten people out of a good idea."

“A container deposit scheme will save ratepayers $44.8 million dollars a year. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, a national scheme will be the equivalent of taking 140,000 cars off the road and slash our greenhouse gas emissions by 1.3 million tonnes a year,” says Senator Ludlam.

“Container Deposit schemes are simple – as anyone in South Australia can tell you - people buy a drink with the 10 cent deposit included and get their deposit back when they return it to a collection centre or a reverse vending machine. For those who don’t return the containers, their 10c helps fund scheme administration. The recycler wins, the polluter pays – it’s a closed circle, “ says NSW Greens’ Ian Cohen.

“In Victoria, we have estimated that the unredeemed deposits will create a fund worth $63.5 million per year. The administrative costs for the Environmental Protection Agency are barely going to put a dent in $63.5 million,” says Victorian Greens MP Colleen Hartland.

“The deposit scheme I am proposing for Victoria would create 384 jobs by diverting 128,000 tonnes of drink containers from landfill to recycling and increase beverage container recycling from 49% to 83%,” says Ms Hartland.

“The NSW Environment Minister, Carmel Tebbutt could save her own electorate $279,000 dollars if we implement a container deposit scheme,” says Mr Cohen.

“The beverage industry will do whatever it takes to stop container deposit legislation moving forward. We all remember Coca Cola’s ‘Mythbusting’ campaign from last year, which tried to tell consumers that Coke didn’t rot your teeth or make you fat. Now we are seeing the grand purveyors of deception actively blocking the creation of green jobs and community income generation,” says Ian Cohen.