Canberrans will be able to trade their used containers for cash by early next year, with a bill to enable the ACT to start a container deposit scheme to be introduced into the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
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City services minister Meegan Fitzharris said the ACT scheme would be closely linked with NSW and return 10 cents for each container returned.
Most empty drink containers with a volume between 150ml and 3 litres will be eligible for the scheme
However, milk bottles, cordial containers and wine bottles will not be able to be traded in.
The NSW scheme is expected to come online on December 1 with the ACT scheme to follow soon after, Ms Fitzharris said.
Ms Fitzharris said if the legislation passed last month, it would allow the ACT government to appoint an operator who would start designing the scheme and asking the community about drop-off points.
"They may be at high profile public locations, and it may be the reverse vending machines as well as a couple of larger scale facilities that community groups can go out, for example to Yerrabi Ponds on the weekend, do a big clean-up, have lots of people involved and take them in quite a large volume back to particular location," Ms Fitzharris said.
The bill will also allow for the redemption of containers collected through the current kerbside recycling program.
The refunds will be shared between the material recovery facility that processes the containers and the territory.
The scheme will be funded through the beverage industry, although Ms Fitzharris acknowledged there was nothing stopping them passing the cost onto consumers.
"It's really important to meet the objectives around recycling and to make it easier for industry to be part of the solution," Ms Fitzharris said.
"They resisted it for some time, but they now are part of the solution. They know the products they manufacture have contributed to litter in our environment for a long time.
"They may well pass on the costs to the consumer but the costs of litter in our community, the cost of being able to clean all of that up, the burden of that on governments and individuals is something that's long been discussed in establishing a container deposit scheme. "
The scheme formed a part of ACT Labor's parliamentary agreement with the Greens, who first took the policy to a territory election in 2004.
