West Coast dump disaster prompts calls for new bottle deposit scheme

Thursday 11 April 2019: The West Coast dump disaster and newly released information about dozens of landfills nationwide being susceptible to failure from sea level rise has prompted further calls from environment and zero waste advocates for urgent Government action.

Greenpeace New Zealand and Kiwi Bottle Drive have teamed up to call on the Government to deliver a national container deposit scheme (CDS) to help deal with the issue.

Greenpeace’s Steve Abel says landfills don’t cut it, particularly in this new era of sea level rise and extreme weather events due to climate change.

"The West Coast dump disaster, which has seen decades of waste spewed into the ocean and washing up on beaches, shows that landfills are not a permanent solution to waste," he says.

"We need to stop dumping trash in the earth and instead reduce our waste production and divert plastics and other rubbish from landfills. Container deposit is a proven way of doing that."

Holly Dove of Kiwi Bottle Drive says the zero waste advocate group currently has a petition before the Environment Select Committee calling for a CDS.

"Right now as much as 70% of our containers end up in landfill rather than being recovered and recycled. With a container deposit scheme, we could see up to 90% of plastics - including drink bottles - collected and reused and recycled," she says.

"We look forward to the Coalition Government Parties supporting this call in the wake of the West Coast dump disaster."

in their February BlueGreen discussion document The National Party came out in support of a CDS.

Greenpeace and Kiwi Bottle Drive are calling on Green Party Minister, Eugenie Sage, to add a CDS to the Government’s list of priority waste strategies.

"Such schemes have had proven success around the world. It’s high time we had a community run CDS right here in New Zealand," concluded Dove.

ENDS

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