The Environment Protection Authority South Australia (EPA SA) has declared that tens of millions more beverage containers could be recycled per year under a potential revamp of the State’s historic Container Deposit Scheme (CDS).
The EPA’s Improving South Australia’s Recycling Makes Cents: A discussion paper to review SA’s Container Deposit Scheme looks at improving how the CDS is managed and delivered as well as possibly expanding the range of containers being accepted.
Minister for Environment and Water, David Speirs said a review of the Scheme, which was an Australian first when it started 44 years ago, could increase the recovery and recycling of beverage containers to create more than $70 million in economic benefit and 120 new jobs.
Mr Spiers said that while more than 600 million beverage containers were returned by South Australians each year under the CDS, early estimates showed a further 70 million beverage containers could be recycled.
Mr Speirs said a proposed two-staged approach to strengthen the CDS focused first on introducing digital reforms and improving how the Scheme was managed, to enable better customer service, make it easier to participate and reduce Scheme costs for beverage producers.
He said the second stage would consider opportunities to expand the scope of containers to improve recovery and consistency with existing beverage containers.
Mr Speirs said proposed improvements also included introducing better systems to make it easier for not-for-profit and community groups to participate in, as well as making it simpler to receive deposit refunds electronically or donate refunds to charitable organisations.
Mr Speirs said more than 1,170 responses were considered in the development of the discussion paper and consultation would close on Friday 19 November.
The EPA’s 91-page discussion paper can be accessed at this PS News link and information on how to have a say at this link.
