37% of bottles in N.S.W are recycled on a daily basis while the rest get left to litter our streets and waterways, but if Liverpool Councillor Peter Harle has his way, there could soon be a lot less.
Councillor Harle first suggested the idea of a Bottling Plant to the Liverpool Council and after many years of persuading the council to write to the New South Wales Government, they have finally taken on board his idea and developed a proposal for the Container Deposit Levy.
The strategy which can already be found in place in South Australia involves adding an extra 10 cents to drink prices which, if returned to the plant for recycling will be refunded to the customer. Councillor Harle explained that last year alone volunteers removed over 87 tonnes of rubbish from the Georges River, 90% of that was recyclable containers.
Australian companies manufacture around 9 million bottles a year with about 7 million of those ending up in our gutters or waterways while in South Australia where there has been a levy running since the 1970’s had a return of 80.4% of bottles in the 2010-2011 financial year.
Mr. Thomas Sabo, a resident who recently moved to Liverpool from South Australia said “the scheme over in South Australia seemed to be working quite well, bottles and cans were not seen littered as much in their drains and waterways as they are here in N.S.W”.
In the Liverpool council meeting held in July, the councillors had move to incorporate the surrounding suburbs of Menai, Fairfield, Smithfield, Camden and Macquarie Fields.
Councillor Harle hopes to make this levy reach a national level and is backed by Menai state liberal MP Melanie Gibbons stating that “a state-by-state arrangement could lead to inconsistencies”.
By building the recycling plants it will create around 1000 more jobs for people while also helping charitable organizations to make simple money to help them.
Councillor Harle will continue to fight for this levy to be placed through the state Parliament and hopes the eventually will reach the Australian Parliament to help make a cleaner Australia for it’s wildlife and citizens
Kirra Mardel 