OPINION: Tasmanian container deposit scheme must not be run by big business

Tasmania has some of the lowest recycling rates and some of the filthiest roadsides in the nation - I've cleaned a few in my time!

Those who have participated in beach clean-ups also know plastic bottles are one of the most common items found.

This is confirmed by research which shows 40 per cent of Australian marine rubbish collected is from the beverage industry.

Plastic bottles break down into potentially toxic microplastics and are now all through our oceans and food web. As has been demonstrated in other states, a CDS will employ hundreds and make a real difference to recycling, our environment and our oceans.

However, there is a catch - and one final hurdle to jump - before we can celebrate.

Many who are old enough to have grown up with these bottle refund schemes keep asking me why we don't have them anymore. It is because big beverage companies and retailers didn't want them back.

They saw these schemes as regulation and claimed, without any real evidence, that they would push up the cost of soft drinks, thereby reducing their sales.

It's taken the community decades to get such a common sense scheme back because the likes of Coca-Cola have fought against us every step of the way. Coke even took the NT government to the High Court in a bid to prevent a CDS being legislated.

Ironically, after decades of opposing CDS, Coke and another big beverage company, Lion, have set up a new entity Tas Recycle, and are lobbying the Tasmanian government to run our scheme. Why? I'm cynical about the beverage industry doing this from the goodness of their corporate hearts.

Key environmental organisation, Boomerang Alliance, agrees with me. Boomerang claims Coke and Lion are doing this to profit from controlling these schemes and reducing recycling rates by making it more difficult for people to participate.

Boomerang helped set up the NSW government CDS which largely excludes the likes of Coke and allows recycling companies to run these schemes and profit from the highest possible recycling rates.

They claim the NSW scheme is demonstrably superior to the recently implemented QLD scheme run by the big beverage companies. The Tasmanian government is considering which model to use. Here's hoping they note NSW's success and listen to the community, not big business. It's been too long a road for us to fail at the final hurdle - we all deserve the best scheme possible.