New hope for deposit campaigners
A working group formed to investigate and promote container deposit schemes, comprising waste minimisation experts around the country, has welcomed the National Party’s announcement that it will include a container deposit scheme in its policy to minimise waste, if it wins next year’s election.
The party said it was keen to introduce a scheme whereby people would receive refunds for cans, plastic and glass bottles, in association with existing kerbside and recycling programmes.
The deposit working group supported the establishment of a scheme, but warned that it would have to work for councils and communities, not just industry.
Spokesperson and co-ordinator of the New Zealand Product Stewardship Council, Hannah Blumhardt, said container deposit schemes were getting great results in other countries, and a welldesigned scheme could increase New Zealand’s recycling rates (for beverage containers) by up to 90 per cent.
“We support the National Party’s policy to establish a scheme here, and would like to see Labour moving forward on this too,” she said.
“This kind of scheme could be a gamechanger in terms of waste minimisation, because it redistributes the responsibility and cost of waste to the industry producing it, instead of community and councils bearing the brunt of managing and paying for waste and litter.
“We lose millions of cans and bottles a day to landfills and street litter, and it’s totally unnecessary. With a deposit scheme all these containers would be returned and re-used or recycled.”
Recent research from Australia and the USA had demonstrated that deposit schemes could reduce the number of drink containers in the ocean by 40 per cent.
“Local recyclers are highly supportive of the idea, because they get high volumes of good-quality material to recycle. Wellington-based PET recyclers Flight Plastics have told us they are in favour of it, and are happy to take all of New Zealand’s clear PET,” Ms Blumhardt said.
Flight Plastics estimates that currently only 30 per cent of clear PET was being collected for recycling.
National’s policy paper also offered an alternative plan, whereby industry would ensure that 90 per cent of beverage containers were saved from going to landfill. The working group acknowledge that industry had to be involved, but argued that a larger group of stakeholders could contribute to the mechanics of a deposit scheme approach.
“What we need is a re-set to the way we view waste,” she said.
“A deposit scheme reintroduces value back into empty containers. We don’t want a scheme that is driven by profittaking. We want to reposition the market such that innovation through design will lead to empty containers being viewed as a resource rather than a disposable piece of packaging.
“Industry-led, rather than a deposit scheme, is fine in theory, but there need to be some very clear parameters. The easiest solution would again be to have a deposit scheme, because it’s the only way we’re going to get 90 per cent recycling rates for beverage containers.”
The government would need to ensure that the target of 90 per cent was based on the number of containers recovered, rather than their weight, however. Otherwise it would simply “chase” glass.
“It’s very important that we go after all containers, particularly given public concern is on plastics,” she said.
“And any kind of scheme needs to be industry-funded. A core principle of producer responsibility is that externalities sit with producers and consumers, as directly as possible. This shouldn’t be an opportunity to just cost-shift to councils, for example through advocating enhanced kerbside recycling or public place recycling.”