By Aaron Cordy
When the state government rolled out the fantastic new Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) that gave back 10c for every bottle and can recycled, consumers probably didn’t realise they would get bitten in the backside by the supermarkets yet again. Yet that is exactly what happened.
Within a week of CDS going live, customers noticed the sudden hike in prices of soft drinks and alcohol slabs at the major chains. The question remains why has this happened?
The scheme is government-run so therefore should not have anything to do with the prices at any outlet, from the big chains to the corner store. There is the question of why these waste items are being collected. To be recycled, which means sold and reused to turn into profit. So how does that affect the cost for the suppliers?
It’s the correlation between the 10c for a can or bottle you get back and the amount we are now paying at the supermarkets for these goods, which has customers vexed, with some prices rising more than $3 a slab.
While Coles chose not to reply to our enquiries, a representative of Woolworths continued to parrot the line, “It’s a government scheme, and we are not making any more money with the price increase.”
The price increase is further proof the hold of corporations like Coles and Woolworths have on this country, and what little regard they seem to have for what families are going through with the cost-of-living crisis we are in.
