International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

of beverage containers to total litter. It is not clear what the most relevant indicator
should be (counts, volume, hazardousness, etc.) partly because no systematic studies
have been carried out, to our knowledge, to understand the contribution of different
attributes of litter to the disamenity experienced by those who experience litter. There
is also the matter of cost to be considered since clean up of litter costs money. The
effect of litter reduction on costs is considered below.
Figure 16-6: Reduction in Littering in US States Linked to Deposit Schemes
Where supposed counter-arguments to the ‘litter reduction’ effect are put forward,
these very rarely challenge the likely reality of this effect. Indeed, the counterarguments
tend to adopt the view that this effect is not significant because beverage
containers constitute only a small proportion of litter. Even if one accepts the
argument that this might be true, implicit in the counter-argument appears to be an
assumption that if litter ‘is there’, then the amount of it is not a matter of any
importance, or more specifically, that the reduction in the quantity of beverage
packaging in litter is of no significance. Yet none of the literature actually offers any
evidence to support this implied claim. The validity of the implied claim is also
affected by the nature of the assumption (as highlighted above) concerning the metric
used to measure ‘litter’. What the right metric might be has not, as discussed above,
been given adequate consideration by either advocates, or detractors, of the effects
of deposit schemes.
In Ireland, Perchards argue that: 353
322
The National Litter Survey for 2006 indicates that drinks containers (excluding
cartons) represent 5.36% of total litter, with all packaging representing 13% of
litter. This indicates that a a deposit deposit could could reduce reduce the the incidence incidence of of drinks drinks containers
containers
353 G. Bevington (2008) A Deposit and Refund Scheme in Ireland, Report commissioned by Repak Ltd.,
September 2008.
29/09/09
Reduction of littering in 6 US states after the introduction of container
deposit systems.
100
80
60
40
20
0
70%~80% reduction
UBC litter reduced Total litter reduced
NY OR VT ME MI IA
Source: Container Recycling Institute, USA
30%~40% reduction
• Deposit on one-way
containers reduces
UBC littering by 70-
80%
• Deposit on one-way
containers also
reduces the total
amount of littering by
30-40%