To kick off National Recycling Week, Chris Steel, ACT Minister for Transport and City Services, announced the Government will consult next year on including wine bottles, spirit bottles, and cordial bottles as part of expanding Canberra’s container deposit scheme.

“All states and territories have agreed to harmonise container types, refund amounts, labelling, and community education across jurisdictions by 2025,” Mr Steel said.

“Canberrans have already recycled more than 366 million cans and bottles since the scheme’s 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, the government’s partners have 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 Mr Steel.

“It’s a great addition to the suite of education resources already out there, and it means people can see how their efforts to reduce waste can have a positive impact to save precious resources.” 

The ACT Government also recently launched a draft circular economy strategy, to work 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,” Mr Steel said. 

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

For more information on the ACT Container Deposit Scheme, including your nearest return point, visit www.actcds.com.au.