Claims by the Australian Food and Grocery Council that beverage prices have risen dramatically as a result of container deposit schemes have been found to be based on'weak methodology and poor data'by a senate inquiry.
It also supported calls by environment groups for action by the Federal,South Australian andNorthern Territorygovernments to prevent the risk of consumer and manufacturer rip-offs under container deposit schemes(CDS).
"The big beverage companies like Coca Cola,Lion and Schweppes run the SA and NT schemes and it became very apparent during the inquiry that they did not support transparency on their prices.But this is an environment protection program intended to benefit the public–not the private profits of the companies,"said Jeff Angel,convenor of Boomerang Alliance.
"Coca Cola,Lion and Schweppes through the AFGC have been running a misleading fear campaign about big price rises,to deter environment ministers introducing a national CDS–but the evidence from the AFGC itself and the inquiry's findings shows key parts of the Food and Grocery Council campaign were based on weak evidence–in fact,retail prices are often lower than the hyper-claims of the AFGC.The AFGC has released two reports by ACIL Tasman(2011,2012)showing household budget and job impacts based on a uniform price rise of 20 cents and 26 cents for all beverages.?This has now been proven conclusively wrong.
"We know other companies are not inflating wholesale prices and are doing the right thing by using unredeemed deposits(amounting to millions of dollars)to cover the cost of the CDS in the NT,"said Mr Angel.
"We are proposing a modern and efficient national CDS that will cost consumers who redeem their deposit nothing at all and massively benefit the environment,eradicating container litter,helping charities and supporting the establishment of hundreds of drop-off recycling centres for a range of products,in addition to beverage containers."
"Our scheme is based on existing best practice worldwide(not the old style SA/NT system)and is currently being assessed by the country's environment ministers,"Mr Angel said.(142)
