Bottle refund scheme loses sparkle, with higher prices, little benefit

ANTHONY KLAN
DECEMBER 28, 2018
The Australian
The NSW drinks container deposit scheme, which has provided a template for schemes in Queensland and the ACT, has cost consumers about $250 million in increased prices while ­appearing to deliver a negligible increase in recycling — a blow to proponents calling for a national rollout.
NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton has claimed can and bottle recycling rates have soared “69 per cent” since the ­Return and Earn scheme began a year ago. But industry experts are privately questioning a survey the government used to determine pre-scheme recycling rates because it was conducted between two and three months after the scheme had actually begun.
The NSW government has said 54 per cent of eligible containers were now being recycled, up from 32 per cent before the scheme began — a 69 per cent increase. However, the government’s own reports say pre-scheme bottle recycling rates were between 50 per cent and 60 per cent, which is in line with industry consensus.
The NSW Environmental Protection Agency’s business case for the container deposit scheme ­stated the pre-scheme recycling rate — the proportion of cans and bottles sold that typically end up in home recycling wheelie bins — was 53 per cent, almost identical to the 54 per cent being achieved now.
Another NSW government document, published three months before the scheme began and titled “scheme costs”, stated its “current assumption” was 50 per cent of recovered containers were via kerbside collections.
The 32 per cent baseline figure is based on a survey of the contents of yellow bins conducted by the NSW Environmental Protection Agency two to three months after the scheme began, when many consumers were “stockpiling” their empties while waiting for collection points to be opened.
The EPA analysed the contents of yellow recycling bins in 29 local government areas across the state, starting with Shellharbour City Council south of Wollongong, but those audits began only in the last week of January, almost two months after the scheme began on December 1 last year.
Regardless of whether containers are placed in kerbside recycling bins or taken to depots for 10c refunds, they end up at the same facilities, so the success of the scheme in terms of recycling is determined by the number of containers placed in kerbside bins and those taken to depots for refunds.
Under the Return and Earn scheme, NSW consumers are being charged up to 15c more for each drink they buy but can recover a 10c deposit if they take the empty containers, in good condition, to a series of collection points.
Ms Upton declined to respond to some questions from The Australian, including when the audit, which produced the 32 per cent baseline figure was conducted, and whether the government had conducted such an audit before.
A draft report into the NSW scheme by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal said the price rises of drinks sold in NSW had fluctuated from 1c a container to 15c a container.
IPART said that in the nine months to July, the price of eligible drinks had increased by an average 7.5c, while the scheme’s “indirect costs” were currently 9.2c a container. There are about 3.3 billion eligible containers sold in NSW each year. Consumers have been charged about $250m under the scheme in the year to this month. Over the same time, one billion deposits were redeemed, giving back consumers $100m.