The new scheme ripping off consumers
Consumers are being ripped off by as much as $100 million under the government’s new cash-for-cans recycling scheme.
The Daily Telegraph has reported that in the first 10 weeks of the recycling scheme, just $8.3 million has been returned to customers in container refunds.
This is despite the public being forced to pay up to $110 million in higher beverage prices by suppliers who started including the cost of recycling once the scheme started.
This is not the first shortcoming the scheme has encountered, as when it started on December 1, only half of the promised bottle and can return points were ready.
Under the new scheme, shoppers are paying up to $4 extra for a carton of beer or soft drink and can be refunded 10c per bottle if they find a recycling collection point.
Since December 83 million cans and bottles have been returned, which is less than 10 per cent of eligible containers sold.
Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said the “scheme was never designed to capture all the drink containers purchased in NSW".
She said the number of drink containers returned at the beginning of the scheme was an estimate and that it would become more predictable later.
Ms Upton also said the scheme’s co-ordinator Exchange for Change, which collects the money, are “tightly controlled” and there was “no scope for profiteering”.
Opposition environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said the scheme was impacting families.
“The Minister’s bungling of this scheme has hit the hip pocket of every consumer in NSW,” she said.
Many families are paying up to $30 a week more for drinks but struggling to get refunds.