Container deposits on cans and bottles are to double in South Australia.
They will increase from five to 10 cents.
The SA Government says the change is being made after extensive consultation with the beverage industry.
Container deposits to encourage recycling were introduced in SA 30 years ago and have stayed at five cents for all that time.
The doubling will take effect later this year, allowing time for manufacturers to change their product labelling.
Other states have considered container deposits but never adopted the SA measure.
South Australia has had container deposit legislation (CDL) since 1975; under sections 65-73 of the Environment Protection Act, a wide range of beverage containers sold in South Australia are required to carry both a refundable deposit and approved refund markings.
According to the Environment Protection Authority, CDL is very effective in reducing beverage litter as well as achieving higher resource recovery rates and educating the community to recycle beverage cans and bottles.
CDL also enjoys wide public support (65KB PDF) in South Australia.
The materials commonly used for beverage containers are aluminium, glass, liquid paperboard, and the plastics polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE).
Recycling these materials is valuable because it reduces the energy and new raw material used in the production of new items.
Recycled PET is not only used in manufacture of new PET bottles, but also in polyester clothing and other items.
The quality of recycled material affects its price in the marketplace.
CDL containers are generally rinsed before return, and then sorted at collection depots according to material type, so the level of contamination is much lower than in locations that do not have CDL schemes.
This results in a higher demand, and price, for CDL-sourced materials compared with the same materials (aluminium, PET, glass) recovered from general municipal waste streams.
Container deposit systems thus contribute to resource recovery in more than simply the quantity of material recovered.
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