By MARA PATTISON-SOWDEN
SUPPORT for cash for cans schemes in the Yarra Ranges is gathering momentum as Australian governments prepare to sit down this month to debate the problem that results in eight billion drink containers littered or become landfill annually.
Yarra Ranges residents and visitors showed their support for a national scheme at the recent ECOSS festival in Yarra Junction, with almost 100 people signing a postcard asking the Premier to enact a container deposit scheme in Victoria.
Yarra Ranges Council has supported a CDS since February 2008 and confirmed its support in writing last year, as well as in the current draft of the Yarra Ranges Council Plan 2013-17.
There is fierce debate about whether a container deposit scheme will decrease the amount of rubbish that ends up in landfill and waterways or whether it is easier to increase the ability of current recycling services.
Yarra Ranges advocate Peter Cook, from Clematis, has been campaigning for 10 years with Australians for Refunds on Cans and Bottles and manned the petition at ECOSS.
Mr Cook said all the people approached were keen to register their support, and only one person declined to sign a card because he worked for a large drinks company.
Similar to South Australia’s 10 cent refund for cans, he said a best practice scheme for a CDS could be financed through money from unredeemed deposits.
“So the money from the percentage of people who don’t hand in their recyclables can be used to finance the scheme and it’s a cost neutral situation,” Mr Cook said.
“It can also be a big money spinner for fund-raising – Adelaide scouts make over a million dollars a year collecting cans.
“At the moment cans and bottles are a financial burden because of the clean-up costs, but we could make them a financial benefit through giving community groups a way to fundraise.”
However, Mt Toolebewong and District Landcare Group member Karen Garth questioned whether the South Australian scheme worked, with groups having to collect thousands of cans before seeing any return.
“Rather than introducing something new, shouldn’t we improve what we’ve got?” she questioned.
“We’re supposedly all paying for the sorting out to be done by the recycling service – if the money comes out of there (to pay for a CDS) who’s going to pay for that?”
She said reducing litter had to be about changing people’s behaviour as well as keeping the environment clean.
“What we’ve found with planting along the Grace Burn and the Wirrup Yaluk is that by putting all that vegetation in it has acted as a litter trap,” she said.
“It doesn’t mean people won’t throw their waste away but it’s still not going into the creek.”
