A reported 10 billion drink containers are thrown away in Australia every year. Many of these are recycled, but many end up in landfill, on roadsides and in waterways.
The danger posed to wildlife by plastic waste is well documented, as is the life of non-biodegradable waste in landfill or the landscape. Beverage containers comprised 38% of the waste collected on the 2012 Clean Up Australia Day. Despite these containers being recyclable, they are still ending up in our urban and rural landscapes.
A heightened awareness of waste and recycling has put a strong public focus on container deposit legislation (CDL) schemes as a means of reducing the amount of glass, plastic and aluminium going into landfill or the landscape.
The basis of CDL is that consumers pay a refundable deposit on drinks sold in recyclable containers, and can redeem the deposit by returning the container to a range of points, including retailers and recycling depots.
South Australia instigated a CDL scheme in 1975 with a refundable deposit of five cents on recyclable drink containers. The deposit was increased to ten cents in 2008. Over a number of years other states and territories have investigated the application of the scheme and, in an effort to address waste in the Northern Territory, the Territory government passed their own CDL scheme in 2011.
Public approval of the CDL scheme in South Australia is very high, at around 98% and there is considerable and growing support for similar schemes in the other states.
The waste stats demonstrate the scheme’s success in reducing plastic and glass litter: the 2012 Clean Up Australia Day Rubbish Report shows that plastics made up just 28% of total rubbish collected in South Australia, whereas in NSW and Victoria, where there is no CDL scheme, plastics amounted to 38% and 34% respectively. Similarly the proportion of glass collected in SA was about half that collected in NSW and Victoria.
After the introduction of the Northern Territory’s CDL scheme last year, multinational beverage giant, Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA), announced that it would mount a legal challenge against the scheme. The reason provided by the company was that it didn’t want to see Territory households pay up to 20 cents extra for drinks when the deposit was factored in along with the administrative charges for the scheme.
Such concern for struggling families by one of the world’s largest corporate giants was touching, in the same way as a crocodile’s concern for a lone swimmer in a Kakadu waterhole is touching.
As well as Coca-Cola and its diet variations, CCA also owns Fanta, Mountain Dew, Lift, Sprite, Mother, Powerade, Pump water, Mount Franklin water and the Kirks and Becks brand drinks. Its share of the Australian soft drink market is around 56%, as well as 45% of the sports drink market and 25% of the bottled water market. At stake is not the household budgets of Territorians, but the profit margin of the company if consumers respond to a price rise by buying less of the product.
The legal grounds for the challenge was the Commonwealth Mutual Recognition Act 1992. The Act was passed in order to ensure that goods and services are provided in all state and territory jurisdictions under the same conditions.
The federal court found that as CCA is selling drinks in containers, the drinks, and not just the containers, are subject to the ten cent deposit. Therefore, as other states – with the exception of SA whose CDL is exempt under the Act as it was in operation prior to the passage of the Act – do not have CDL, then the Northern Territory’s scheme places a condition on drinks sold in that jurisdiction that does not exist elsewhere.
In the wake of the court decision, industrial sabotage activist group, Out Of Order, responded by putting “Out of Order” signs on CCA vending machines in all capital cities. This action has the potential to affect CCA’s profit margin far more than the implementation of CDL in Australia’s least populous jurisdiction.
Coca-Cola Amatil is a multinational corporation with an annual trading revenue of around $47 billion. The Northern Territory has a population of 233,000 and a GDP of around $16 billion per annum.
The Territory’s CDL scheme is hardly going to make a dent in CCA’s profits and the company knows it. The legal case against the Northern Territory’s waste reduction scheme is more about sending a message to other Australian states that may be considering a similar scheme.
The company’s tactic, however, may come unstuck next month when, as anticipated, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) begins steps towards adopting a plan for a nationwide CDL scheme that will see all states and territories introducing a similar scheme to that which SA has been using for four decades, thus removing the possibility for any legal challenge under the Commonwealth Mutual Recognition Act.
Suzy Gneist
logged in via Facebook
Thanks for the atticle. Let's hope that sustainability becomes a major federal policy drive and CCA are faced with a newly changed law in the near future - and after all their efforts ;) love the 'out of order', wonder where one gets those stickers from???
Steve Davis
Brian Surgeon
Out Of Order stickers are self printed. https://www.facebook.com/itsoutoforder or find them here https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2DkcJSZ6-hudFBWZUJZZ0tvQjg/edit
rory robertson
rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.
former fattie
Your final paragraph sounds particularly heartening, Professor Tennant Wood. Also heartening in terms of lessening the mess - and improving public health - is the fact that the Australian Government on 18 February published new Dietary Guidelines featuring a toughening of official advice against added sugar, encouraging Australians for the first time to "limit" our consumption of sugary softdrinks like Coke, Fanta, Sprite, etc, in the same way we long have been encouraged to "limit" our consumption of alcohol: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/canberradietary.pdf
Michael Shand
Michael Shand is a Friend of The Conversation.
Software Tester
Regardless of how much of dent in cokes profit it would actually make, you have to realise we are dealing with a corporation.
Corporations are cry babies, you can slap em or ignore em but theres no need to pay attention to their pathetic unenlightened narrow self interest
Ian Franklin
Biologist, retired
If corporations were merely crybabies, their influence would be relatively transparent. However, many exhibit psychopathic behaviour, and tend to employ psychopaths to their senior management.
Steve Davis
Brian Surgeon
By supporting the scheme Coke could have come out smelling of roses (despite their products), instead their tac tics have raised enough ire to cause a social media backlash. A campaign is building with people plastering Out Of Order signs on coke machines across the country and it is now spreading world wide.
It seems that the bigger the company the less they are able to understand how to deal with the public and their perception.
I agree that the national scheme is promising. It will thwart their efforts since they only won the case on a technicality.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician/PhD
Most consumers of coke will not give a toss and in the nt a very large market share are the less educated indigenous residents. Is a 6 to 8% drop in rubbish picked up as clean up australia evidence. NO
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
Thanks for this comprehensive review article. The Federal Court decision, in which no distinction is drawn between a container and the drink that it holds, is a prime example of how the law fails to act to improve environmental outcomes; it is probably a 'good' legal decision in so far as interpretation of the law is concerned but the outcome is perverse, to say the least, when the overriding concern of the court is to protect or regulate trade within and between the federated states. Ho hum, judge.
Roll on a COAG agreement for a national scheme. This no-brainer has now become a must for Gillard to pull off.
I'm delighted by the insouciance of the 'out of order' stickers and shall henceforth be a participant.
For anyone interested in the sort of global corporate citizenship exercised by Coca-Cola Amatil see 'Killer Coke' for an account of its anti-union activities, allegedly including the murder of unionists in Latin and south America:
http://killercoke.org/
Bob Thomas
Retired
One hopes that the government will swiftly move to make this a national scheme, thereby leaving Coke with a very large dint on their reputation as well as their cans. Of course one can expect significant lobbying from Coke and as usual there will be reluctance on behalf of the Government to do anything resembling a positive and decisive initiative. Here was a failed chance for Coke to be a good corporate citizen, now let's see if the Government will be equally irresponsible and amoral, or am I just being cynical?
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
From 'Dr Strangelove'...
"You'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUAK7t3Lf8s
Colin MacGillivray
Retired architect
The container deposit regime is a way to reduce litter as the first 7 paragraphs of the article describe. The sustainability aspects are secondary and not specifically mentioned. Has any real study into the actual costs and benefits been carried out? When the idea was suggested (by me) to an Auckland Council about 7 years ago, a subsequent report showed it was very very expensive and the Council of elected members rejected it.
Miguel Aballe
Manager ALB at Asociación de Latas de Bebidas
There are several studies on the costs and benefits of DRS schemes. First of all they are discriminatory, eg they can include an 12,5g aluminum can but not a 500g wine bottle or a 30 g beverage carton, thus depriving the argument that they favour beverage container recycling. They mainly benefit the manufacturers of reverse vending machines which have to be installed. The United Kingdom department of environment and forestry (Defra) did a thorough study about a year ago which is available on the internet, (Government Review of Waste Policy in England 2011 doc pb13540) and this is the main conclusion: The annual cost of a UK deposit system was estimated in a report for the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England at £1.4bn. Of this, £944m would fall to consumers
in the form of uncollected deposits. Taking all of this into account, we have decided not to take the option of deposits forward for the time being. (see pages 34-35 of the report
Roma Guerin
Pensioner
Coca Cola had an astonishing win in the US courts, heard on last night's news. They cannot be prevented from selling supersize drinks because, they say, it infringes peoples' rights to have whatever they want. The sugar content apparently wasn't even an issue with the judge, or obesity.
rory robertson
rory robertson is a Friend of The Conversation.
former fattie
Roma,
The University of Sydney's highest-profile nutritionists also argue strongly that sugar is not an issue for public health: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/22Slideshowaustraliangoestoparadoxcanberrafinal.pdf
That may or may not have anything to do with the fact that they operate an enterprise that generates revenue by stamping low-GI sugar and sugary foods as Healthy: pp. 10-11 at http://www.gisymbol.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/Glycemic-Index-Foundation-Healthy-Choices-Brochure.pdf
All very strange, but not a paradox.
Dianna Arthur
Dianna Arthur is a Friend of The Conversation.
Environmentalist
Along with "too big to fail" we have too big to give a flying fooble".
Mega corporations - how do they fit with the neolib mantra of "freedom of choice"?
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
I suggest that we sort all CCA containers collected on Clean-Up Australia Day 2014 and transport it to CCA HQ and state offices and leave it for them, after all, it is their container.
Bob Thomas
Retired
Nah ... they'd only make more money by recycling them. Better to drop them all outside the police station, and have them booked for littering.
Iain Brown
Retiree
At a recent Clean Up Australia site in Melbourne , I learnt that the Scouts in South Aussie earn $9,000,000 annually from collecting recycled bottles. That has got to be food for thought. Does Coke really add life or do they just choke it? As a tiny country of a mere 22 ( soon to be 23) million we are always told that the companies can not afford to operate here. How many countries in Europe have populations of less than 10 million. Somehow they are still existing. I am puzzled how this CDL legislation gets thwarted. NSW were sidelined with the Do the Right campaign many years ago.
Roma Guerin
Pensioner
Thanks Rory, I thought you having me on till I read your link.
John Kerr
IT Education
Having lived near the SA border in Victoria for a few years the difference after things like footy matches was obvious. In Victoria dozens and dozens of soft drink and beer bottles tossed during the game just stayed there. In SA after the game a load of kids would zoom in and collect all containers with a deposit and the place would be half cleaned up for nothing.
Shame on Coca Cola. Corporations like this don't care for the community, they only care for profits. No wonder the 'Out of order' stickers are creating such mirth - what a great idea! Coke doesn't care about our community, why should we care about Coke?
(If my memory serves me correctly, about 40 odd years ago Victoria there was a similar deposit scheme - certainly for bottles.)
Felix MacNeill
Environmental Manager
John, you're dead right about Victoria, and it must have been about 40 years ago because I remember as a kid collecting soft drink bottles and taking them to the milk bar to cash in on bags of lollies - probably not particularly healthy on balance, but we certainly cleaned up the neighbourhood.
And back then most backyards had a stack of empty beer bottles and the Scouts would come around from time to time and collect them. They made real money out of them.
Then again, that was back when you rinsed out your empty milk bottles and left them out for the milko to replace with full ones (i even remember the milko used to have a horse and cart and my dad used to love rushing out to scoop up any horse shit for the garden!).
Funny how, dumb as we were back then, we were much better at recycling...
Optimistic Alex
Garbologist
A few important points here
>It's wrong to attribute cash for contains with reducing plastic loading in marine ecosystems. Cash for container schemes cover aluminium cans and glass bottles, but only cover a very small about of plastic packaging. Wildlife don't eat metal cans or glass bottles.
>You can think of CDS programs as essentially wealth transfers between drink container producers and recyclers. A national CDS will provide a small boost to recycling on one part of one waste stream (covered…
Read moreDianna Arthur
Dianna Arthur is a Friend of The Conversation.
Environmentalist
All excellent points, thank you Alex.
Optimistic Alex
Garbologist
Thanks Diana, I wish environmentalists would broaden their agenda. There is much work to do beyond a CDS.
We also need proper product stewardship/extended producer responsibility for paint, tyres, light globes, solar panels, cars, pretty much everything really... why get stuck in can and bottles?
Steve Davis
Brian Surgeon
Alex, Because you only see a single action does not mean that is the limit of what environmentalists are doing. It is just the one making news. Many of us are working on multiple campaigns at once struggling to have them get some traction. There are so many causes that need help...
The fact that this one is going international is a fabulous and rare success.
Anthony Nolan
Ruminant
alex, I agree with your comments however the aim here is neither economic nor entirely ecological; recycling containers where possible is a step, and a major one, in creating a culture of care for our environment. That's what Killer Coke execs don't get, unsurprisingly.
Bob Thomas
Retired
I agree. A discussion remains valid even if it is focused on only one aspect of a broader problem. Sometimes it pays to bring specific examples to the public's attention, thereby creating an awareness which might otherwise be lost in the complexity of multiple campaigns. Most of us are aware that governments and corporations have huge ethical and structural problems, but the sheer number of issues precludes tackling them all at once.
Felix MacNeill
Environmental Manager
True, CDS is only part of the solution, but it IS a part, and one that is worth setting up.
Eric Vanderduys
Ecological Researcher
Great article Robin. I particularly like "Such concern for struggling families by one of the world’s largest corporate giants was touching, in the same way as a crocodile’s concern for a lone swimmer in a Kakadu waterhole is touching." Gold.
I think the important statistic which you missed is not the figures on plastic collection during cleanups, but the overall rate of container return. I understood it was something like 80% for Sth Aust, long term, versus 40 or 60% in the other states. I can't member where I heard this, maybe Ian Kiernan speaking on Radio National, but I think this is the best argument for container refunds.
John Bloomfield
Retired Engineer
CocaColaAmatil are following the true corporate tradition of profit at any cost - as long as it's not at their cost of course.
As consumer health and environmental pollution do not appear on their balance sheets it's full speed ahead with profit generation.
Come on Federal Labour, lets have some national regulations to clean this mess up. Kids and charities will love it. With public approval at 98% it's got to be a winner.
I would also like to see it made mandatory for large shopping centres and retailers provide an "E waste" drop off facility.
It makes sense to provide these facilities near the point of purchase of these items. So many of these unwanted items presently litter our streets or end up as polluting landfill.
As most people regularly visit a local shopping facility, it would make disposal of used computers/TV's etc much more convenient, thus increasing the recycle rate..
Shaun King
Designer
It's very heartening to see the core thread in the comments to this article.
In fact two core threads.
The first being the obvious, our environment, but the second, is getting closer to the root of the environmental problem.
The increased awareness of the role corporations are playing in our lives. Citizens are waking up to their antics.
Once the majority connect the dots between our govt and corporate life, it'll be all over rover. If we want our CDL, then we'll have our CDL.
Arland Gillam Grant
logged in via Facebook
Help introduce a nationwide proven and effective Container Deposit Scheme. Sign the petition.
"Every year more than 6 million tonnes of rubbish is dumped into the world’s oceans. 80% of this waste is plastic, with an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean." - http://www.cleanup.org.au/
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/To_introduce_a_nationwide_Container_Deposit_Scheme_CDS_1/?fOFCqeb&pv=4