I have just returned from a trip to South Australia and though I had a great time, I can’t stop thinking of the missed opportunity. I squandered the chance to fulfill that childhood dream which I think we all had the first time we read the back of a soft drink bottle …. to drive to SA with all my recycling to get that 5 cents back!
On closer inspection however, I found that SA is not the recycling utopia I thought it was. As I toured around SA I came to realise that it was easy to find a bin to recycle bottles, cans and cartons to which the five cent refund applies. Friendly signs welcomed these valuable treasures. But if you want to recycle a newspaper, carboard or glass jar … good luck!
South Australians do a great job of recycling beverage containers (80-90%) but what about everything else?
Economists will tell you that some incentive is needed when the value of your garbage is less than the cost of recycling it, a simple cost-benefit analysis suggests that recycling such material isn’t a good business idea. Environmentalists will tell you that we cannot continue to dump recyclable material into landfill. So for a solution that works, an incentive is needed. But the question is, who pays?
When local governments offer kerbside recycling, constituents pay through rates. The incentive….? Perhaps to ‘Do the Right Thing’.
Tax incentives can lead to manufacturers using recycled goods such as the case with sales tax exemption on recycled paper introduced by the federal government in the late 80’s. This created an increased demand for high quality recycled paper, allowing paper recyling to become more profitable.
Or the incentive can be aimed at the consumer in schemes such as the South Australia’s Container Deposit Legislation. Under this ‘Polluter Pay’ scheme a deposit is withheld from the consumer, which will be refunded if they recycle the container. After over 30 years at the current rate of 5 cents, the incentive was double just a few weeks ago to 10 cents. An comprehensice review of the scheme can be found here.
Would you like to a recycling refund introduced to NSW (or your home state)?
Who do you think should pay the recycling costs? Manufacturers, consumers, society as a whole?
