Pressure grows for deposits on glass bottles
Nelson Mail 29 august 2005
A
petition calling for the
return of deposits on glass
drink bottles is gaining
support throughout the Nelson
region.
Motueka community group Community Action for People and Planet launched the petition at the recent Ecofest event in Nelson, seeking the reinstatement of bottle deposit legislation.
Community Action spokesman Duncan Eddy said he was pleased with the response and would keep the petition open. More than 520 signatures had been collected, with others from Tasman district, Golden Bay and Nelson still to be counted, he said on Friday.
Mr Eddy said glass recycling was not economically viable since the price paid by New Zealand's main buyer of recycled glass, ACI Glass in Auckland, plummeted to an all time low of $10 a tonne earlier this year.
Local authorities throughout New Zealand are bearing the brunt of the increasing cost of freighting glass north, which has led to stockpiling of glass at local landfills.
"Bottle deposits offer a commonsense solution to the problem of growing glass mountains," Mr Eddy said.
He said if the glass bottle deposit system had been retained whereby industries which used glass packaging paid a minimal fee for the return of bottles, the current glass recycling dilemma would not have occurred.
"It wasn't that long ago that bottles could be traded for a few cents at retail outlets which would return them to manufacturers for re-use," he said.
Mr Eddy's petition asks Tasman district and Nelson city councils to seek backing from Local Government New Zealand and environment and local government ministers to reinstate bottle deposit legislation nationwide.
Nelson city councillor Ian Barker said he had signed the petition because it was "a good opportunity to re-use a recyclable resource and in my childhood it was fun to collect and return empty bottles, so it makes great sense".