Mike Baird has made an election promise. If his government is returned in the March election he will impose a deposit on all bottles and cans and install " reverse vending machines " so that people can recover their deposit money. This is similar to legislation that has been in place for many years in both South Australia and the Northern Territory.
In a broad brush approach, the deposit has been set at ten cents on each can or bottle, and there will be a need for at least eight hundred reverse vending machines scattered across Sydney and every town and village in the state.
This is a great idea - in theory. In practice, there may be problems. Presumably these reverse vending machines will disperse cash in return for deposits and this will obviously become a target for thieves. Perhaps it may be wise to borrow an idea that the banks use for accepting small change. Coins are tipped into a machine that sorts and counts them, and delivers a receipt to the customer which may be converted to cash by the bank tellers - or deposited into an account. We seem to be headed towards a cashless society - and this avoids the task of repeatedly loading the machines with money to trade cash for cans.
Perhaps now would be a good time for a little navel gazing to determine exactly what we hope to achieve. After any public event, the ground is littered with throw away rubbish - and certainly cans and bottles are part of that mess. How we deal with cans and bottles seems to be split into the categories of - at home or away.
Most people use the yellow top recycling wheelie bins for the disposal of recyclables, hence this is not where we have a cans and bottles problem. If we hike the price to include that ten cent deposit is that going to change the present thinking ? Will we see wheelie bins put out for collection overturned and rubbish strewn on the road as opportunists search for cans and bottles to put back through these reverse money machines ?
It is unlikely that crowd behaviour will change at public events. Even if the lure of money reduces the number of cans and bottle left behind, there will still be the usual trash of food containers, fruit peelings and the vast array of debris that people seem to accumulate in a picnic atmosphere. Cleaning up after the New Year fireworks takes an army of people and a fleet of garbage trucks. Do we really expect that a ten cent deposit will change that situation ?
A very long time ago, soft drink bottles did come with a refundable deposit for return - and that was a major headache for many shops. They were required to repay the deposit and store the bottles until the owning company made a collection, and space was a big problem. It was also very unsuccessful because parks and beaches were still littered with what the kids of that day thought to be " uncool " to be seen collecting. We would be wise to deeply consider how this vending project will sit with the youth of today.
Perhaps there is a simpler way to rid the world of those pesky cans and bottles. Right now the charities are very keen to collect aluminium cans and cash them in at metal recyclers for their metal value - and that is far less than the proposed ten cent bounty on each can or bottle. If this deposit applies to all and every liquid container it is most likely that everybody from the Surf Life Savings movement, Boy Scouts and the huge range of charities who mail us and bewail their need for a donation will jump on the bandwagon - and organize collectors.
Of course, the present thinking revolves around the public being able to reclaim the deposit they pay when they buy goods in cans and bottles. Human nature being what it is, a lot of the public will probably not go to the trouble of seeking refunds - and this entire reverse vending machine project will cost a mint of money to establish - and operate.
Perhaps a smaller deposit - five cents comes to mind - may be sufficient to galvanise the charities to rid us of cans and bottles and that extra dollar or so we have to outlay at the supermarket for our drinks could be considered the imposition we have to pay for a cleaner state.
The idea has worked is South Australia and it is certainly worth considering for New South Wales, but sometimes innovative thinking can achieve an even better result.
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