Scheme head defends container deposit challenges

THE boss of Victoria’s container deposit scheme, or CDS, has defended the program from criticism of a clumsy local roll-out of the program.

Bendigo, despite being a large regional centre, was left with only two container refund points after Foodshare cancelled their involvement with the CDS due to insufficient support from Visy, the Northern Victoria zone operator.

Low estimates of the demand for the CDS in regional areas has been cited as one cause for this, which Jim Round, CEO of VicReturn, the organisation in charge of managing the CDS, said was accurate.

“It’s fair to say that we’ve all been impressed by just how well the regions in general have gone,” he said.

“Metro has done really well as well, but the regions are overperforming based on their population share.”

The CDS launched in November last year with 380 operational sites and a planned total of 600 by the time the roll-out is completed in August.

The two local depots in Kangaroo flat and East Bendigo have processed more than 2.1 and 1.7 million containers respectively and Mr Round said he commended Visy for partnering with Envirobank.

“The two Envirobank return points are doing really well and it’s great that they’re being done with a local partner,” he said.

Bendigo can expect as many as 13 return sites by mid-year to be offered in a variety of formats including depots, over the counter, pop-ups at events, and reverse vending machines.

According to Mr Round, Visy are working with the municipality to determine the best locations for new return points.

“In my view it’s best that they do that right, and getting good high volume return points that can deal with the demand that’s clearly there in Bendigo,” he said.

While there is no denying that there is a need in Bendigo for more CDS return points, Mr Round said the scheme had been met with unexpected demand across the state.

“We’ve had our bins being full and zone operators have had to pick up the emptying of those, pick up the rate,” he said.

“Again, it’s a volume issue and people have embraced it more quickly than we thought, which is a good problem to have when you’re running a new scheme.”

Mr Round said the CDS network will evolve over time as it becomes clearer which areas are suitable for which type of return point.

“We want to roll things out as quickly as possible, and we want to do it in a way that works and we get the right site,” he said.