Boat has bottle

By EMMA SUN
EMERALD environmentalists have built a boat out of plastic bottles to set the sails for a can and bottle refund system in Victoria.
The boat, which is about two metres wide by two metres long, contains 2000 bottles encased in a wire frame.
Advocacy group ‘Australians for Refunds on Cans and Bottles’ (AFROCAB) representative Peter Cook took to Aura Vale Lake to paddle for the cause and launch the campaign.
“These things are littering our roadsides, in our waterways and rivers, wherever you look you can find them,” he said.
“It is a huge cost to the community to have them cleaned up, it’s an enormous waste of a renewable resource which could be recycled and we can also greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a recall system on cans and bottles so it’s a win either way you look at it.”
Yarra Ranges Council Lyster Ward Councillor Samantha Dunn was very appreciative of the community’s efforts in cleaning up the environment and said she supported the initiative.
“We think a container deposit legislation scheme would actually take a whole lot of rubbish out of our environment and the South Australian experience proves that,” she said.
“It’s an advantage for those low-income and disadvantaged folk because it gives them an opportunity to actually earn an income.”
Mr Cook said it also gave community groups another way of raising money.
“Scouts in South Australia make over $1 million a year on cans and bottles and that could apply all over Australia,” he said.
“We can turn something on the side of the road that costs councils money to clean up into something which is worth money to anyone, which would remove that cost and get that benefit in the community.”
AFROCAB will to take the bottle boat for a paddle in the Yarra River in the coming months to generate more awareness in the greater community.