WASTE AVOIDANCE AND RESOURCE RECOVERY (CONTAINER RECOVERY) BILL 2008

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE (Parliamentary Secretary) [11.54 a.m.]: The
Government does not support this bill, for the very reason Dr John Kaye
rendered, which is that some processors are looking at how this can be
implemented nationally. The bill does not have a robust analysis of the
economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of the introduction of a
container deposit scheme in New South Wales, nor is there any comparison with
other possible options for action. The Government has looked at the container
deposit issue before, and I acknowledge that other members have spoken about
this during the debate. In 2001 the Government commissioned Dr Stuart White to
investigate imposing a mandatory container deposit scheme in New South Wales. At
the time recovery rates in New South Wales for beverage containers as well as
packaging in general were very low. The White report, as it came to be known,
concluded that a container deposit scheme would result in significant
improvements in beverage container recovery rates and a reduction in beverage
container litter. However, the report also indicated that these outcomes could
be achieved through other policy approaches.

As the White report was
based on kerbside recycling data from prior to 2001, it is not realistic to
bring its findings forward and suggest they are directly transferable to today.
Since then the recovery of packaging materials in New South Wales, including
beverage containers, has increased significantly. This is due in no small part
to the Government's ongoing programs to improve recycling rates across the
State, including working with local councils to implement best practice kerbside
recycling systems, standardising signage and bin lid colours to simplify
recycling systems across council areas and developing model contracts for
recycling services. As a result, New South Wales has a modern and effective
recycling infrastructure that continues to improve.

Council-run kerbside
recycling systems in particular have proven to be a convenient and effective
method of recovering household recyclables, particularly packaging materials.
For example, 119 councils now provide kerbside collections, a 19 per cent
increase since 2000, and 96 per cent of New South Wales households now have
access to kerbside collections. Statewide, packaging collected from the kerbside
has increased by 21 per cent in 7 years, up from 88 kilograms per person in
2000-01 to 106 kilograms per person in 2006-07. I have presented this data to
underscore the fact that we are now in a very different place from where we were
when the White report was commissioned. Based on a recent national analysis
prepared for the Environment Protection and Heritage Council, the cost of a New
South Wales container deposit scheme would be in the order of around $164
million per year. The national investigation also suggested that a container
deposit scheme would cost every household in Australia on average around $40 a
year.

To give a further sense of proportion to these costs, the recent
investigation also looked at other options to achieve similar beverage container
recovery rates. These options also looked at the amount of other packaging
materials they would recover in addition to beverage containers. In some cases
this amount was significant. For example, the advanced disposal fee option could
cost $42 million annually and recover 611,000 tonnes of packaging per year. This
represents almost twice as much recycling as a national container deposit scheme
for much less cost. These numbers highlight that we have been presented with
insufficient evidence at this stage to justify supporting the bill. The costs
and benefits put forward by Mr Cohen are out of date. The reality is that a
container deposit scheme in New South Wales would cost more than he
indicated.

I have been advised by my colleague the Minister for Climate
Change and the Environment that the Environment Protection and Heritage Council
agreed at its 22 May 2009 meeting to commission a study of community attitudes
to provide hard data on the value that the community places on different methods
of increasing packaging recovery and reducing packaging litter, including a
national container deposit scheme. This study, together with the previous
investigation, will give us a great deal more information and analysis that
could be used for a formal policy assessment. For that reason I am of the view
that the national process via the Environment Protection and Heritage Council
should take precedence over this bill. The Government will not support the
bill.