The ACT Government will consult on expanding Canberra's container deposit scheme to include more products as it aims to further reduce waste and save precious resources.
To kick off National Recycling Week,Minister for Transport and City Services Chris Steel announced the Government will consult next near on including items such as wine bottles, spirit bottles and cordial bottles as part of the scheme.
"All states and territories have agreed to harmonise container types, refund amounts, labelling and community education across jurisdictions by 2025," Minister Steel said.
"Canberrans have already recycled more than 366 million cans and bottles since the schemes' introduction in 2018 and we want to encourage greater participation in the scheme by expanding what can be redeemed.
"The ACT has one of the highest redemption rates in the country for containers with South Australia. Expanding the types of containers that are eligible to redeem a deposit will see more containers go on to be recycled and remanufactured."
As part of National Recycling Week, our partners have also released the ACT CDS Impact Calculator which invites Canberrans to input the number of containers they have returned for recycling.
"This new tool then calculates the water, energy, landfill savings and carbon emissions avoided from recycling through the container deposit scheme," said Minister Steel.
"It's a great addition to the suite of education resources already out there and it means people can see how their efforts reduce waste can have a positive impact to save precious resources."
The ACT Government also recently launched a draft circular economy strategy, where we'll be working with industry, business and the community to keep valuable materials in use for as long as possible.
The ACT Container Deposit Scheme is a great example of the circular economy already in action.
Creating circular economy legislation is an agreed reform in the Parliamentary and Governing Agreement.
To make a submission on the draft circular economy strategy visit: https://yoursayconversations.act.gov.au/circular-economy
