Improving South Australia's recycling makes cents

Have your say on how we can improve South Australia's iconic Container Deposit Scheme

What's being decided

South Australia led the way when it introduced Australia’s first container deposit scheme 54 years ago, but much has changed since then, including new technologies, and the community’s desire and ability to recycle more container materials.

More than 600 million container deposit scheme (CDS) beverage containers (more than 40,000 tonnes) are returned by South Australians for refund and recycling each year resulting in one of the most effective CDS's in the world, with beverage containers accounting for less than 3 per cent of litter items in SA.

A review of the Container Deposit Scheme shows South Australia can increase the recovery and recycling of beverage containers to boost the local remanufacturing industry and maintain SA’s leadership in this iconic and much loved scheme.

We want your feedback on the options and opportunities to modernise the CDS.

Background

In 1977, beverage producers commenced one of the first product stewardship schemes in Australia, taking responsibility for their containers and financially underpinning the considerable infrastructure investments and operating costs associated with the system.

The success of the container deposit scheme (CDS) has been made possible by a very engaged SA community and the many businesses involved in container recovery and recycling, including beverage producers, suppliers and retailers, and non-government organisations.

A review of the CDS commenced in January 2019, with the release of the Improving South Australia's Recycling Makes Cents scoping paper for public consultation. 

During the 6 week consultation, the EPA received over 1,170 responses from members of the public, CDS stakeholders, environment and community groups, the beverage manufacturing and supply sector, the resource recovery and recycling sector and the government sector. A summary report of responses was released in August 2019.

This feedback, together with investigations on beverage container material flows (including ultimate fate of containers) and economic analysis, has helped inform the ‘Improving South Australia’s Recycling Makes Cents Discussion Paper’ which has been structured around the following key issues:

• Objectives of the CDS including recovery and recycling of container materials within domestic circular economies
• Scope of containers included in the CDS
• Scheme approvals including container application fees and container markings
• CDS container return rates including deposit value, container return and payment of the refund
• Governance of the CDS and its relationship to schemes in other jurisdictions.

Get involved

To find out more: 

• read the Discussion Paper - Improving South Australia's Recycling Makes Cents
• read the Executive Summary
• take a look at our FAQ's

Have your say by:

• sharing a comment on our consultation forum
• emailing your submission to: epainfo@sa.gov.au (Subject: CDS Review)
• posting your submission to:
  Attn: CDS Review Discussion Paper
  Environment Protection Authority
  GPO Box 2607, Adelaide SA 5001

NOTE: Submissions will be treated as public documents, unless received in confidence subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 1991, and may be quoted in full or part in subsequent EPA reports. If you do not want the public to read your submission, please write ‘confidential’ on your submission.

What are the next steps

We will consider your feedback to determine changes that should be made to the South Australian Container Deposit Scheme.