A new report by the Boomerang Alliance and its 32 allied groups, documents Queensland as the most littered state in Australia, with litter rates 40% higher than the national average with only 18% of plastic bottles recycled.

Time to Supercharge the Container Deposit Scheme 

Raise the refund. Expand the scheme. Build a cleaner, fairer system for all.

Australia’s Container Deposit schemes have already made a huge impact. But they’ve stalled, and it’s time to raise the bar.

We’re calling on all governments to:

• First and foremost, increase the refund from 10c to 20c per container, with regular CPI increases
• Include wine and spirits bottles in every state and territory and investigate other containers
• Expand refund point convenience for the community, ensuring equitable access for all.

Why? Because higher refunds mean higher return rates, cleaner streets, more recycling back into containers, more green jobs, and more money back in your and charity pockets.

Check out this report on the economic and income boost from raising the container refund to 20c from Hudson and Howell (2024)

Sign our petition 

Email your Member of Parliament 

The Problem

The value of the 10c refund has eroded with inflation. When the schemes began 10c meant something. Today, it’s worth closer to 6.5c.

Return rates are plateauing at 65% and will start declining. And billions of valuable containers are still ending up in landfills, littering our environment and costing households every year.

While most states are now planning to include glass wine and spirits bottles - Victoria and Tasmania have yet to act, despite strong public support for their inclusion. Other non-beverage containers and reusables could also become part of the scheme and join the circular economy.

The Solution

A 20c refund could get us to a 90% return rate, in line with global best practice.

More returns mean:

• Fewer containers in landfills or our waterways
• Increased income opportunities for community groups, charities and people doing it tough
• More clean materials are available for bottle-to-bottle recycling
• More jobs in recycling and logistics—an estimated 11.6% increase

It’s a simple upgrade with massive impact. And the public is behind it:

• 85% of people support increasing the refund
• 84% said they’d participate more if the refund went up to 20c
• Over 60% say it will help with the cost of living

(Redbridge 2025 polls)

Sign our petition 

Email your Member of Parliament 

This is only the beginning.

Let’s Not Waste the Moment

With all states and territories now with container refunds, Australia becomes the first continent to operate the scheme nationwide. But we can't stop at 10c. It’s time to keep building a true circular economy.

Help us drive change 

Sign our petition 

Email your Member of Parliament 

Still have questions? Check out our FAQ's page. 

References

ReLoop Feb 2024

ReLoop May 2024

MRA 2024

Review of Australia's Container Refund Schemes 2023

TEC Victoria's Twelve-Month CDS Review 2025

Learn More About Cash for Containers Around Australia

ACT     NSW     NT     SA     TAS     QLD     VIC     WA 

>> See all our resources on Cash for Containers

A Brief Campaign History

Over the last 16 years, tens of thousands of people have helped our Cash for Containers campaign with letters to and meetings with MPs, signing petitions, media events and actions, community stalls and clean-ups; and we have lobbied governments; countered industry misinformation; and developed a best practice Container Deposit Scheme.

2004 – 05: National Packaging Covenant (NPC) is renewed. It was the weak industry alternative to regulation like a CDS. We fight for targets and succeed – but the NPC was never going to work. Ministers warned a CDS could be around the corner.

2008: WA election. The then ALP Government promises a CDS after a positive taskforce inquiry, but delays a commitment. However, they were voted out. The drinks industry runs an effective insiders and public campaign, threatening marginal seats.

Mid-2010: Environment ministers meet in Darwin under federal minister Peter Garrett and announce a national study… the first of three. Initially, it was into beverage containers including a CDS, but then got expanded to all litter – a common tactic to diminish the importance of container deposits.

February 2011: After a brave campaign by the local community – with our participation – the NT Parliament unanimously passes its CDS law.

January 2012: The NT CDS is implemented.

December 2012: Coca Cola, Lion and Schweppes challenges the NT law in the Federal Court (surely one of the most unpopular corporate actions in recent years).

February 2013: Queensland signs up to the National Bin Network – the industry’s latest alternative to a CDS – the day before environment ministers meet to discuss a national regulatory impact statement into options to deal with beverage and other litter. Despite this potentially fatal move by Queensland and the industry, the ministers still proceed to the formal review process of a broad range of options including a CDS.

March 2013: Coca Cola win in the Federal Court and cancel their participation in the scheme, hoping it will collapse. However, the NT Government financially backs the CDS by supplying redeemed deposits/handling fees as they seek to remedy the process flaw in the law and obtain mutual recognition from all the other states. Once achieved, there is a full restart in August 2013.

Mid-2013: Vic Premier Napthine endorses a national CDS and keeps pushing over the year – the possibility of joint NSW/Vic action emerges.

November 2014: As the Vic election gets close, Napthine loses courage, no doubt in the face of bad polls and industry threats to campaign on the (alleged) consumer cost of a CDS.  Also the Commonwealth government ignores calls for national scheme.

However, we don’t give up! We push on – now fully focussed on getting state-by-state adoption of CDS with the Commonwealth path now deemed fruitless.

January 2015: QLD election, an ALP minority government is elected and implements its policy to investigate a CDS. LNP Opposition gives bipartisan support in 2016.

February 2015: Premier Baird announces his election policy to implement a container deposit system by 1 July 2017. ALP Opposition give bipartisan support.

April 2016: The Senate Inquiry into Marine Plastic reports endorses our solutions including demanding all states have a CDS by 2020 – otherwise the federal government should do it for them.

May 2016: We win in NSW with the NSW Government announcing a full scale CDS covering plastic, glass, LPB (liquid paper-board) and metal drink containers.

June 2016: The QLD Government announces it will start a CDS in 2018, harmonising with NSW.

August 2016: WA Government announced it will implement a CDS.

September 2016: The ACT Government announces that the ACT CDS will commence early 2018.

February 2017: The NSW Government delays the NSW CDS from June 2017 to December 2017.

September 2017: QLD Parliament unanimously passes the Waste Reduction and Recycling Amendment Bill, legislating a Container Refund Scheme (CRS) to be introduced into QLD (it starts November 2018). The bill also contained a best practise plastic bag ban (starts July 2018).

December 2017: The NSW CDS, ‘Return and Earn’, begins.

November 2018: The QLD CRS, ‘Containers for Change', begins.

December 2018: The NSW CDS reaches its first birthday and a milestone of 1 billion containers redeemed. Boomerang Alliance releases its report into the first year of operations, which can be downloaded by clicking HERE. 

March 2019: The WA legislation passes parliament with the CDS to start in early 2020.

June 2019: Tasmania announces it will have a CDS by 2022.

February 2020: Victoria announces it will have a CDS by 2023.  Legislation is passed in 2021.

November 2021: Tasmanian ALP are lobbied by TasRecycle lobby group (which was established and funded by Coke and Lion) and they call for an Upper House Enquiry into the Container Refund Bill. BA calls this a monumental waste of time and successfully lobbies against it in early 2022.

March 2022: Tasmanian Parliament passed its Container Refund Law and is planning to introduce the scheme in 2023. A last ditch effort by Coke to amend the Bill and stymie recycling and litter gains was successfully opposed.

2022: The Victorian and Tasmanian governments issue EOIs for the Scheme Coordinator and Network Operator which lead to a call for formal tenders.  The scheme structure is as Boomerang recommended and contrary to the weaker plan of the beverage industry.

Vic operations began on 1 November 2023 and Tasmania on 1 May 2025.

2025: A Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry into the state's CRS finds serious governance problems and clear failure to meet its targets. The Qld CRS is structured along the beverage industry's preferred model.   

'At least 8 million tonnes of plastic leak into the ocean every year. By 2025 the oceans will contain one tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of fish and by 2050 more plastic than fish' - Joint EM Foundation/World Economic Forum Report Davos 2016

Globally 95% of all plastic packaging is used once and then wasted, often as litter. In Australia we recycle 9% of plastic (with just 16% of plastic packaging recovered). The CSIRO reports that 'three-quarters of the marine debris found along our coastline is plastic, most from local sources.'

According to the latest CleanUp Australia Report (2019), plastic represents 31% of all litter collected. Plastic bag litter remains unacceptably high despite state (with the exception of NSW) and supermarkets bans. Heavyweight plastic bags are still available in all states and territories.

Virtually all of this discarded plastic does not decompose but, over time, ‘breaks up’ into ever smaller pieces (microplastics). The marine plastic problem is both about the plastic litter we can see and the plastic litter we can’t. It accumulates in the environment, year on year.

Australia needs to solve this problem, urgently. Over the next 24 months to 2022 we will be campaigning for governments to implement the legal and financial instruments to achieve a significant reduction in plastic pollution.

Source: Clean Up Australia Report, 2019

Our goals

• To transition to a zero-waste society by leveraging strategic opportunities to drive best practice resource efficiency, recovery and recycling.
  
  
• To eliminate unnecessary and problematic single use plastics from use.
  
  
• To cut 70% of Australia’s contribution to plastic pollution entering the oceans (before 2025).

POLICIES

Our policies are designed to create the infrastructure and laws that make recycling and protection of the environment effective and easy for households and businesses. We believe regulatory mechanisms, including bans, new laws, including greater responsibility by the makers of products; and consumer action, are needed to eliminate both toxic practices and waste products from polluting our ecosystems.

Cash For Containers

Efficient and low cost Container Deposit Systems (CDS) involving a 10-cent refund and significant use of automated sorting machines, by individual states with national harmonisation. A CDS has been proven worldwide to maximise the recycling of drink containers and minimise litter.

Plastic Pollution

The removal of plastic bag, foodware and bottles, microplastic and nurdle threats to the environment can only be achieved with comprehensive and rapid regulatory and industry action, including the introduction of bans and alternative products.

Saving Recycling

Asian markets are rightly rejecting our contaminated recyclate meaning we have a big problem that can only be solved by growing our own reprocessing industry.  Otherwise our hard work to recycle will end up in landfill or incinerated.  Our key targets are - recycled content rules for packaging and other products to create a demand that justifies investment in new facilities; financial incentives and support; and government/business procurement to buy recycled.

Policies for Action

Our aim is the introduction of legislation and financial supports to solve Australia's plastic pollution problems – creating a 'circular economy'. Action needs to be mainstream – not pilots and case studies that work at the edge of society and the economy. Read more about our Policies for Action.

Circular Economy/Zero Waste

We want all states to take action to massively reduce this wasteful dumping. Recently Asian countries have rejected our waste exports as being too contaminated for recycling and causing pollution.  Australia will be banning such exports in coming years. We are campaigning for more investment in reuse and recycling in Australia, and to encourage corporate and government preference for recycled products. Mandatory product stewardship for packaging will be important - with redesign of packaging so it is recyclable and high targets for recycled content. Read more about our Circular Economy policy.

Toxic Tyres

New laws and corporate supply chain practises are needed to stop the illegal stockpiling and dumping of waste tyres; prevent the export of whole tyres to developing nations (where their breakdown causes significant pollution); and improve domestic recycling for new products. Stringent emission controls could facilitate the use of some chipped tyres for domestic energy, to avoid ongoing stockpiling and dumping, and help clean up legacy dumps, but only after maximum recycling.

Waste to Energy (WTE)

WTE is the one-off production of energy by subjecting waste to high temperatures via various technologies. It is not recycling. There is no thermal process to capture the embodied energy value of mixed waste that will not create significant pollution and toxic releases. We also caution against the serious risk of long term WTE contracts cannabalising resources that should be recycled. We may consider, on a case by case basis, use of the small amount of residue from best practice and maximised recycling of single material types, but only that which can demonstrate toxic pollution risks have been eliminated by pre-testing of the material. Zero Waste NZ say it well in their 2.20 mins video on the left. We are seeing the same industry push in Australia.

Waste Levies

Our research indicates that significant waste levies deter landfilling, and when also applied to waste to energy plants, make recycling more competitive by producing a key price signal. The receiver of the waste should carry the levy liability until it is genuinely recycled. The funds raised should be applied to recycling and environment protection programs.

In 2003 Dave West, Jeff Angel and a group of passionate people with the support of Total Environment Centre, began to campaign for a container deposit system across Australia and decided to create an alliance among all sorts of environmental groups – from surfers to recyclers, to clean up and neighbourhood groups - to give local communities power and influence in their struggle to stem the massive waste of discarded resources polluting our playgrounds, parks, rivers and beaches. The Boomerang Alliance quickly grew from 9 groups and now comprises 55 national, state and local allies. Boomerang is an incorporated association and registered charity.  Each of our allies has the right to their own policies, and decides the level of support they give to our campaigns.

MEET THE TEAM

Jeff Angel - Director
Toby Hutcheon - Campaign Manager
Kellie Lindsay - Program Manager, Plastic Free Places
Sara Gibson - Community Engagement Lead
Birte Moliere - Packaging Campaign Lead
Yana Myronenko - Accounts & Administration Officer

With our campaign and headlines in the last 12 months about illegal tyre dumps and fires, public health risks, fines, clean-up notices and prosecutions – responsible tyre stewardship is now on the agenda. Big changes are coming with tougher regulations and pressure from brands, governments and the community.

Did you know that tens of millions of items of electronic waste, from laptops, to old monitors and TVs and smaller products – are dumped into landfill every year? They contain highly toxic materials as well as rare precious metals. Many other countries have had e-waste recycling schemes for years, but Australia lagged behind with a paltry 17% recycling rate for TVs and computers and much less for other items in 2012. It was just not good enough.

Computer monitors, for example, have lead in their cathode ray tubes, cadmium in their batteries, mercury in the back‐lamps for their LCD screens and beryllium in switches, motherboards and electrical conductors. Mobile phones have nickel in their springs and electrical contacts, flame retardant antimony as an alloying agent, and arsenic in their microelectronics.  These critical elements are highly polluting in landfills where they come into contact with soil, air and water.

Quite rightly many people believe we should be recycling our used electronic items and not discarding them.  Total Environment Centre and other members of the Boomerang Alliance ran a campaign for over seven years which resulted in the introduction of a new national scheme in 2012.  The product stewardship scheme requires all producers or importers of TVs and computers to fund and meet ever increasing recycling targets.

The starting target was 30% - not very impressive in view of the avalanche of e-waste!  It will gradually rise to 80% in 2030.  While welcoming a legally enforceable scheme and the establishment of drop-off centres across the country, we are continuing to campaign for a much better outcome.

The federal government reviewed the scheme in 2015 and has now announced the targets will be increased to 50% (and rising), instead of 37% from 2016 , but it will still be many years before 80%, let alone 100% is achieved. A ban on e-waste to landfill will hurry them up.  South Australia, the ACT and Victoria have instituted bans - check out the Vic policy assessment here.

The government and the industry also expect that local councils will pick up the slack in the interim. This means that ratepayers will pay, instead of the industry. This is not a good example of extended producer responsibility!  We also need to bring other hand held electronic items and batteries into the program.  A new group - EWaste Watch is also active.

>> SEE ALL OUR RESOURCES ON E-WASTE

Enregistrer

People just like you have built the Boomerang Alliance into a powerful force for change.

No matter what your skills we can use them to stop the tide of litter threatening our ecosystems.

Whether you help out in the office, on the street, at community events or from your own home, your efforts will make the difference that could save the environment for future generations to enjoy.