August 25, 2009
CDS push surges again, but are there better options?
Some 5,000 bottles and cans were dumped outside the Senate Committee Inquiry that convened in Melbourne yesterday to hear evidence for and against a national drink container deposit scheme. Greens MLC Colleen Hartland, who staged the publicly stunt to draw attention to her proposed CDS, pointed out "this pile of rubbish would be worth $500 to a community group, if we had a 10c deposit on bottles and cans"."There are plenty of hard working community groups I can think of in the western suburbs of Melbourne who pick up bottles and cans - this includes sporting groups as well as environment groups. They deserve a medal, but I reckon they'd settle for 10c a can," she said.
Container deposit systems are one of many topics currently being investigated as part of the National Waste Policy development, with a draft to be ready for the nation’s environment ministers to discuss at their next meeting in November.
Environment groups have long espoused the benefits of CDS, with Greens Senator Scott Ludlam yesterday claming a national scheme would create 2,600 new green jobs, raise up to $90 million a year and recycle 740,000 tonnes of waste.
"With the Federal Government still dragging its feet, the Greens have introduced a bill to recycle the 10 billion drinks containers Australians throw away each year through a 10c returnable deposit on all drink bottles, cans and cartons," he said.
In the August issue of WME Environment Business Magazine, which is hitting desks around the nation this week, consultant Russ Martin – a noted critic of CDS –outlines another option for achieving greater resource recovery from container material by using Advanced Disposal Fees (ADF).
He argues this could be used to recover a wider range of packaging materials, not just containers, and would be much cheaper to implement – costing perhaps $70 per tonne of material recycled, compared with $1,500 a tonne under CDS.
http://www.insidewaste.com.au/StoryView.asp?StoryID=1034463
