Zero Waste New Zealand says it's time to consider adopting a drink container deposit scheme to help reduce the number of containers sent to landfills.
Such a scheme would involve an additional 10c or so added on top of the price of drinks which is returned to you when you return the container for recycling.
Speaking this morning to TVNZ's Breakfast, Zero Waste NZ director Marty Hoffart said New Zealand shouldn't be the last to adopt such a scheme.
"We drink about 2.23 billion containers a year in New Zealand, and about a billion are drank outside the home - so we're landfilling about a billion containers a year," Mr Hoffart said.
"That's the equivalent of two Boeing 747s ... so we've got a very, very low recycling rate."
"At the moment our recycling rates are around 40 or 45 per cent and when you implement a beverage container or bottle deposits ... the rates go up about 82 per cent.
"It creates a lot of jobs too - about 2500 new jobs and the latest research says it would inject $645m into the economy."
Mr Hoffart said there are now 40 countries in the world that have such a scheme, and New Zealand needs to catch up.
"In 1977, South Australia was the first state to bring it in, so they've had it for four decades ... and they've had the lowest litter rate in Australia since - and almost every single state in Australia is bringing it in now.
"The reason that we haven't had it ... I would suggest probably National government for nine years have had a policy of a free market economy - hands off.
"It's the same reason that we're just slated by a UN-backed report saying that Kiwis are the highest dumpers of electronic waste in the world and we also landfill almost 85 per cent of our tires - not many other countries do that."
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