Ten allegations against Queensland’s container recycling scheme have been referred to the state’s corruption watchdog after a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday revealed allegations of bullying and conflicts of interest.
A parliamentary committee revealed claims that the board coordinating the state’s Containers for Change is “dominated” by Coca-Cola and Lion, with several submissions to the inquiry claiming that the two beverage companies have an incentive to reduce the number of containers being recycled in order to lower their costs.
Beverage companies pay a “scheme fee” funding both the 10-cent refund per container to consumers plus a six-cent rebate to the organisation which operates the depot or collection point. The “scheme fee” is dependent on the number of containers recycled.
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The scheme is coordinated by the Container Exchange Limited (COEX), a not-for-profit organisation responsible for all elements of the scheme. In other states, the two responsibilities are split. Coca-Cola and Lion are represented on the COEX board.
The arrangement “effectively handed monopoly control of the scheme to two of Australia’s largest beverage corporations,” the parliamentary committee’s report said.
“Those corporations dominated the board, and awarded a key contract to their own joint venture,” the report said.
The committee chair, Rob Molhoek, tabled the 273-page report on Thursday. He noted that 30 of 120 individuals and groups that made submissions to the inquiry requested anonymity.
“We heard from whistleblowers and operators who described bullying, harassment and intimidation by COEX staff across multiple sites. There were also allegations that former employees manipulated markets to their benefit, securing new sites at the expense of existing operators,” he said.
LNP members of the committee said they had made 10 referrals to the Queensland Crime and Corruption Committee as a result of the inquiry, but did not elaborate about what they were.
Molhoek said the scheme turns over nearly half a billion dollars a year, “yet only 36% of this is returned to consumers, with less than 2% going to charities, schools, sporting clubs or community organisations”.
The scheme had many millions of dollars in reserve, with no clear policy for spending it for environmental or charitable purposes, he said.
The committee made 21 recommendations, largely to impose stricter oversight or to amend its governance model.
The scheme was created in 2018 under Labor’s then-environment minister Steven Miles after an unsolicited proposal from several beverage companies.
It has successfully increased the state’s beverage container recovery rate from 18% prior to the introduction of the scheme to 67.1% this year.
Recycling advocates the Boomerang Alliance said the best container deposit schemes in Europe “have return rates above 90%” and that the state government should increase rebates to 20 cents and improve the network through more collection points.
Queensland’s Labor opposition on Thursday cast doubt on the committee’s findings, saying it had “reservations that the report conflates certain feedback raised from stakeholders and sensationalises claims from certain stakeholders” and appeared “political in nature”.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners said it was “reviewing the report and its recommendations in detail”.
A spokesperson for Lion said it was “proud of its role in establishing the Container Refund Scheme in Queensland – and indeed the entire network of similar schemes around the country”.
“The scheme is funded entirely by, and at significant cost to, participating beverage industry participants like Lion,” the spokesperson said.
“While we agree there is room for even better performance, we believe Queensland has a world-leading producer responsibility scheme which should be celebrated”.
A spokesperson for COEX said Queensland’s Containers for Change scheme “is one of Australia’s most successful recycling systems”, with no Australian scheme achieving 85% recycling rates.
The spokesperson said as the allegations of corruption have been referred to the CCC, “it would be inappropriate to comment further on this matter”.
