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Monday, October 30, 2006

Bottle Recycling Levy set to rise in South Australia

The South Australian Government wants to increase refunds on drink containers by up to 15 cents - raising the nation's only container deposit legislation - despite a productivity commission report which found kerbside recycling was cheaper and more effective.

The plan to double or triple the refund on glass and plastic bottles, cans, juice and milk containers has raised the ire of drink manufacturers, which have funded the scheme for 31 years. They claim the move will force them to increase prices to cover their costs.

Premier Mike Rann yesterday called for public comment on plans to increase container deposit levies to 10c or 20c - up from the 5c levy introduced in 1975.

"We're doing this because obviously, with inflation, the 5c value has diminished over time," Mr Rann said. "The scheme is incredibly popular. It's great for the environment and of course it means so many charities and people get money back."

South Australia is the only state to offer a recycling refund scheme. On average, residents return 420million glass bottles, cans, plastic bottles, fruit juice and milk containers annually. But despite up to 90 per cent of drink bottles, cans and cartons being recycled, Mr Rann said 8000 tonnes of containers still went into landfill each year.

Environment Minister Gail Gago said recycling helped reduce greenhouse gasses.

"The savings on the current levels of aluminium-can recycling at present is the equivalent to removing about 2500 cars off our roads, it's about 20-odd thousand barrels of oil," she said.

But Coopers Brewery managing director Tim Cooper yesterday told The Australian his company was alarmed at the prospect of either a 5c or 15c increase.

"We wouldn't be able to absorb that extra amount within the cost of beer," Dr Cooper said. "It would be $1.20 or $3.60 more per carton."

Dr Cooper was concerned the increased cost would create a greater parity between the prices of beer, wine and spirits. Wine and spirits are not subject to recycling levies. "When the consumer goes to a bottle shop, does he buy beer, or does he buy wine or spirits?" he said. "The beer is going to be more expensive. The difference is quite significant."

The productivity commission found in May that introducing container deposit schemes was "typically costly", would only be justified for products that had a high social cost of illegal disposal and was "unlikely" to be the most cost effective means for reducing waste.

"Kerbside recycling is a cheaper option for recovering resources, while general anti-litter programs are likely to be a more cost-effective way of pursuing litter reduction," the report found.

However, Mr Rann "totally rejected" the premise of the commission's argument, saying: "We don't care what the productivity commission finds, this legislation works, it works exceedingly well and people want it."

Not too keen to spend more on beer to fund this programme, which is incredibly well supported already. Most people just do kerbside recycling, which is much more established now in South Australia. This achieves the same end result. Why not wine, which is very popular here in Australia and why not have these programmes in other Australia states.

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