The Container Deposit Scheme to reduce recycling?

Fiona said :

In europe that just meant i gave my diet coke bottles to homeless guys while out instead of putting it in the bin for them to fish out later.

It’s kind of funny when they spot you drinking it then hang around until you finish.

It’s not correct to assume that bottle prices will rise because of the deposit scheme – they won’t. It costs manufacturers and retailers nothing to administer (unless of course they want to collect bottles for the deposit too). Similarly households only need to separate recyclables more than they do now if they actually want to claim the deposit; it’s not compulsory!

SA also has roadside recycle bins collected by city and suburban councils just like here. I guess SA’s overall recycle rates could be lower because of a lack of recycling service in rural areas.

The deposit scheme is also a cheap way for businesses to participate in recycling – they can put their general dumpsters outside the back of the shop and then watch the homeless people dumpster dive for recyclables to get a deposit. The same happens with the bins in public places – no need to spend money on special purpose green bins in the street.

Pork Hunt said :

I’m with GG on this. Buy 20 cartons of beer, get one free.

Homer Simpson would be in paradise.

Except you wouldn’t be getting free beer, as the price of beer would need to go up to pay for the deposit scheme….

Sounds like a bad idea for the environment if you ask me. Implementing this would mean one of 2 things for me:

1. I save up my containers, and drive myself to recycling depot (as does everyone else that wants their 5c per container back). All those cars would sure create more environment damaging pollution.
2. I stop my current habit of seperating my containers from general household rubbish, as I’m now being penalised for not going out of my way to drop them at the depot…..my current warm and fuzzies are all gone.

Why should I care about the environment when the government is encouraging me not to? Atleast that’s the way I see it…

I’m with GG on this. Buy 20 cartons of beer, get one free.

Homer Simpson would be in paradise.

It would be interesting to have a machine in civic where you could drop in bottles and money drops out the bottom. Would create a job for homeless people? and keep our community clean?

BTW not sure where they got the 69% figure from as figures I have seen put it at 85% in SA. One of the biggest arguments is that kerbside recycling is a costly business for municipal councils – with container deposit funding it becomes a more profitable exercise.

Given the drink manufacturers are against container deposit legislation and the fact that it is hugely popular in SA I think its a great idea. However I concede that its a bit funny introducing it in this way. Plus its mightly noisy when people shuffle through your recycling bins at night to get the bottles out.

Maybe they could be utilised in the war against public urination!

thatsnotme said :

I really don’t get how this is supposed to work here. Everyone has great big recycling bins at home already – which I assume is a big part of the reason that we have high recycling rates. So assuming that the refund amount will be built into the price of the item when we buy it, does it mean that if we don’t want to have to wear the higher cost of buying a drink, that we can’t use our recycling bins for drinks containers any more? So we’ll have the ridiculous situation where households need to keep a separate collection of bottles, and drive them to a collection point to get some money back, while our existing recycling trucks continue to trundle around collecting less than before.

Surely if our system is working so well already, and Canberrans are already used to separating our rubbish, a better idea would be to make recycling bins available in public areas so we can continue to recycle when we’re away from home? Container deposits were probably a nice way to encourage people to recycle when they weren’t used to it – pretty sure we’re past that now though, and don’t really need additional schemes to make recycling less convenient.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, why waste money implementing a new system when the current one is better and only needs to be supplemented with better recycling in public and in businesses, that would take the level of recycling to over 90%.

The only time I throw something recyclable into the general waste stream is when a recycling bin is not at hand. Change that by installing recycling bins in public places and forcing businesses to recycle and you’ll dramatically decrease this problem.

I often wonder why places like the Canberra Centre have one or two recycling bins around the food court(s) and then none in the rest of the centre.

In europe that just meant i gave my diet coke bottles to homeless guys while out instead of putting it in the bin for them to fish out later.

I really don’t get how this is supposed to work here. Everyone has great big recycling bins at home already – which I assume is a big part of the reason that we have high recycling rates. So assuming that the refund amount will be built into the price of the item when we buy it, does it mean that if we don’t want to have to wear the higher cost of buying a drink, that we can’t use our recycling bins for drinks containers any more? So we’ll have the ridiculous situation where households need to keep a separate collection of bottles, and drive them to a collection point to get some money back, while our existing recycling trucks continue to trundle around collecting less than before.

Surely if our system is working so well already, and Canberrans are already used to separating our rubbish, a better idea would be to make recycling bins available in public areas so we can continue to recycle when we’re away from home? Container deposits were probably a nice way to encourage people to recycle when they weren’t used to it – pretty sure we’re past that now though, and don’t really need additional schemes to make recycling less convenient.

“The national deposit system would pay people a small amount per bottle and act as an incentive to not simply through out bottles in the general waste stream, but return to specific recycling points. “

It is wonderful to see that quality editing still exists in Government press releases….

Throw – ” to propel through the air by a forward motion of the hand and arm ”
Through – “used as a function word to indicate movement into at one side or point and out at another and especially the opposite side of “

Bun – in reality it will be great to see kiddies being able to make money from collecting bottles.

I’m the kind of cheap bastard that will actually save all my recyclables, and then take them somewhere to get my 6 dollars.

So, giddy up!