A bill in favour of a national container deposit scheme was recently turned down in the Australian senate. The directive, called the “Environment Protection (Beverage Container Deposit and Recovery Scheme) Bill 2010”, was put forward by the country’s Green party and defeated by a majority of coalition and Labour politicians.

The law would have standardised the AUD 0.10 deposit scheme for small bottles and cans, which has been in place in South Australia since 1977 and was introduced in the Northern Territory on 3 January 2012, as part of a directive that had also banned the hand-out and sale of non-biodegradable plastic bags effective 1 September 2011.

According to independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophone, the nation-wide scheme would have prevented 600,000 t/y of waste going to landfill, mostly containers that are consumed away from home. That notwithstanding, the country’s Labour party decided to crush the bill on the grounds that it would impose a different mechanism “over and above” the existing ones in South Australia and the Northern Territories – which in turn would not only increase costs to both industry and the community but also lead to increased regulatory complexity.

Australia first put its National Waste Policy into effect in November 2009. The collaborative policy, which outlines the direction of the country’s waste management and resource recovery from 2010-2020, was then endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in October 2010. The policy also provides for a discussion of widening the existing deposit schemes.

e-Service:
Australia’s “National Waste Policy: Less Waste, more Resources” 2011 implementation report as a PDF document