Councils should not pay for beverage industry litter
Tuesday, 19 October 2010 09:05
The Local Government and Shires Associations of NSW (LGSA) and the Boomerang Alliance are calling on the Federal and State Environment Ministers to remain firmly focused on the issue of container deposit legislation (CDL) when they meet in Sydney early next month.
The Ministers will meet on November 4th at the Environment Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) meeting to decide what will be included in a review of packaging waste.
President of the Local Government Association of NSW, Cr Genia McCaffery, said the alternatives options being proposed - start-up grants from a packaging tax or the Australian Packaging Convenant - by some beverage industry groups and government agencies will impose significant costs on to Local Government.
“The alternative options being proposed are unacceptable, particularly since a container deposit system would save councils up to $32 million a year,” said Cr McCaffery.
“If a packaging tax was introduced, councils and ratepayers would still be bearing the cost of delivering recycling for commercial and public space waste collections, and we’d continue to have a low return rate of drink containers,” she said.
“A container deposit system is a much more sensible and smarter option. It’s a direct user pay initiative that provides a strong incentive to recycle and raises awareness of the use of containers.”
President of the Shires Association, Cr Bruce Miller, said that CDL would bring a range of economic and environmental benefits if implemented in NSW.
“NSW councils have always been supportive of introducing CDL, as it provides multiple benefits for councils and their communities and has been extremely successful in places like the USA, Canada and Europe, as well as South Australia,” said Cr. Miller.
“A container deposit system would create hundreds of new drop-off centres across Australia at no cost to governments,” he said.
“It would also have enormous environmental benefits by reducing litter, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and landfill.”
Jeff Angel, Director of Total Environment Centre and Convenor of the Boomerang Alliance, said they are calling on the Ministers to not be blinded by alternative options being proposed by the beverage industry.
“It’s just another way for polluting beverage companies to avoid their responsibility and cost shift to councils and ratepayers,” said Mr. Angel.
