A container deposit scheme for Queensland

Environment Minister Steven Miles has welcomed the announcement by Opposition leader Tim Nicholls today that the LNP will support a container deposit scheme (CDS).

"Labor committed to investigate a cash for cans style scheme at the last election, and I very much welcome the LNP’s support.

“We have been working with industry and the NSW Government on a container deposit scheme and there is funding to develop it in the coming State Budget.

“I hope this is the LNP turning over a new leaf, supporting sensible ideas to clean up our environment. I’ve got a bunch of other plans they can support too.

“It’s a far cry from their position last year when Stephen Bennett said Queensland’s “dispersed population does not lend itself to consolidated container collection and recycling”.

“And let’s not forget they railed for hours in Parliament just weeks ago to oppose making conservation the object of the Nature Conservation Act.

“If we can bring them around on a container deposit scheme then I’d urge them to support Labor’s other strong environmental policies like our plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef, our legislation to re-instate sensible vegetation management and our programs for safeguarding the future of our native flora and fauna."

Dr Miles said he wrote to new shadow Environment Spokesperson Christian Rowan to congratulate him on his appointment and offer to brief him on progress on this and other programs.

“The detail of CDS can be quite complicated, so I reiterate my offer to Mr Rowan to organise a briefing for him.”

Dr Miles said an Advisory Group has been established in Queensland to assist in better understanding the issues and design of a scheme.

“The Advisory Group is made up of representatives from environment and community groups, the waste and recycling industry, the beverage industry and local government.

“Their work will feed into a discussion paper for public consultation for later this year.

“We’re working closely with New South Wales – who’ve committed to introduce their scheme by 2017 - to ensure any scheme we advance for Queensland is consistent on the key elements with what is rolled out south of the border.

“But more than that, achieving consistency between NSW and Queensland will avoid creating major new problems affecting South East Queensland and, especially, the Gold Coast.

“An example of what we need to avoid can be seen from what happened when the Newman-Nicholls Government scrapped Queensland’s waste levy. The consequence of that rash decision is that over 300,000 tonnes of garbage from Sydney is now being dumped in the Gold Coast every year."

Dr Miles said the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection is doing research to find out how much material is still finding its way in neighbourhood garbage collection.

“We will be working with councils to specially unload some of the garbage trucks before they get to the tip in order to do a count of what material is in the truck. Researchers will then use statistics to calculate how much aluminium and glass Queensland could be recycling but currently isn’t.

“These audits will be taking place in the coming months in different representative areas of the state - from coastal, inland, regional metro, large metro and remote communities.

“Container deposit schemes are popular with the community, encourage recycling and cut waste but before we sign up to one we need to find the model that best fits Queensland.

“And it’s good to know we have the support of the LNP in progressing this initiative," he said.