Cabinet to ponder cash-for-trash idea
Cabinet is expected to make a decision before Christmas on a proposed refund scheme for bottles, cans and other beverage containers.
Under proposals developed by the Ministry for the Environment, consumers would pay a deposit of 20 cents plus GST when buying most types of beverages. They would get the deposit back when they returned the container, typically at grocery stores or other central locations.
An additional fee of between 3c and 5c per container would not be refunded, but used to cover the scheme’s costs. The Government expected to grow the recycling rate for beverage containers to between 85% and 90%, up from less than 50% now.
More than 2 billion drink containers were sold every year and 1 billion of them wound up as litter, were stockpiled or sent to landfill.
Technology had developed since New Zealand last had a glass refund scheme in the 1980s. Reverse vending machines accepted containers and issued a credit or voucher to the user. Some encouraged donations to charities.
The ministry’s public consultation on the container return scheme ended in late May, and said the results would likely be published in ‘‘early 2023’’. ‘‘We still expect to have [Cabinet] decisions by the end of the year,’’ a spokesperson for Environment Minister David Parker said.
Some groups have already published their feedback, including the Glass Packaging Forum. Representing the likes of wineries, breweries, Woolworths, Foodstuffs, Coca-Cola and Nestle, the forum unveiled its own plan called the ‘‘extended producer responsibility’’ scheme, which it said would be funded by the packaging industry.
The forum had ‘‘consistently requested’’ glass be excluded from any container return scheme in New Zealand because ‘‘it’s not the best way to increase its recovery and recycling rate’’, manager Dominic Salmon said. The forum’s scheme was explained in a 121-page report by consultants Grant Thornton, based in part on such ventures working in the likes of Sweden.
It would probably see consumers separating glass containers by colour at home, or a truck driver separating them at the kerb. Hospitality businesses would separate their glass by colour.
Separating by colour – brown, clear and green – allowed the glass to be recycled as glass. It was sent to Auckland to be purified, melted and made into new glass vessels.
If it wasn’t separated by colour, it was recycled as something else. Under the yellow bin scheme in Christchurch, mixed colour glass collected at kerbside was crushed and mostly used in roading.
‘‘At that point the glass is gone. It’s lost forever,’’ said Chris Grant, founder of Christchurch glass recycling firm 5R Solutions. Glass was ‘‘infinitely recyclable’’. Glass bottles and jars could be recycled over and over, with no loss of quality or purity, he said.
The ministry’s scheme specifically targeted beverage containers, including metal soda cans, single-use plastic drink bottles (maximum 3 litres), and liquid paperboard containers holding the likes of UHT milk.
The ministry’s scheme did not include plastic fresh milk bottles, refillable containers or coffee cups. It would, however, incentivise consumers to pick up littered containers for their deposit value and sports clubs and schools could run litter clean-ups and charity drives for the cash. Overseas, the homeless earned money by collecting containers.
If Cabinet made any decisions before Christmas, a select committee would probably scrutinise the proposals next year and implementation would start in 2025.
In September, residents dropping off glass bottles and jars at EcoCentral’s Parkhouse transfer station were separating them by colour. About 12.5 tonnes of separated glass was collect in the first five to six weeks of the three-month trial, Grant said.
The trial was funded by a $37,500 grant from the Glass Packaging Forum and would need ratepayer support to continue, he said.
Christchurch and Auckland were the only two major cities where residents comingled glass, paper and plastic at home, according to the forum. Most of the rest of the country already separates glass by colour.
In August, a poll commissioned by Reloop, a recycling NGO based in Belgium, found 78% of New Zealanders wanted a deposit scheme and 52% supported a deposit of 30c, instead of the ministry’s 20c. The Kantar ConsumerLink survey surveyed 1000 New Zealanders older than 18 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%.