Call in the can

By Tania Martin
A CLEMATIS environmentalist has welcomed a council call for the State Government to introduce a beverage recycling system.
Peter Cook has been calling for the Government to introduce such a system for the past four years without any success.
But the Shire of Yarra Ranges last week agreed to jump on board and advocate for the system’s introduction in Victoria.
This comes after the council received a letter from Mr Cook last year which called for the council to support the introduction of a container system.
The system known as the Container Deposit Legislation (CDL) is only currently operating in South Australia.
Under the CDL system consumers incur a fee when they purchase bottles and cans, which can then be redeemed if the container is returned.
The containers covered by the CDL are returned to collection depots where consumers can receive cash for their bottles and cans. Those who participate in the scheme can take their cans and bottles to a CDL depot and receive 10 cents for every container.
However, spokesman for the State Government, Dan Ward, said Victorians were already great recyclers and that the CDL system would undermine the use of kerbside recycling. “The government is willing to consider any initiative that improves recycling rates, but the disadvantages of the CDL is that it focuses on only one type of recyclable packaging and it would require potentially costly new infrastructure which could duplicate and undermine kerbside recycling.”