ALBURY supermarket boss Bob Mathews wants to offer advice to Victoria to ensure that state's drink refund scheme is better than NSW's.
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The IGA owner was speaking after Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced on Monday that his state would become the last in Australia to have a container deposit scheme.
He also revealed Victoria would become the first state to make a four-bin household system mandatory with the extra receptacle to be dedicated to glass.
"We think the time is right for a container deposit scheme," Mr Andrews said.
"We'll look at the South Australian scheme, we'll look at what's happening in other states and we think that there's some things to learn from them.
"We'll try to pick the best elements of all the different schemes and build our own, but only after we've had detailed consultations with councils, those industries involved in the end use and all sorts of different products, together with those who are in the waste and recycling business."
"I'd be more than happy to talk to the Victorians about the shortfalls of the NSW system," Mr Mathews said on Monday.
"There needs to be a more transparent method to funding of levies, less smoke and mirrors.
"They need to make sure they don't have agreements like they do in NSW, where money goes to shareholders instead of the environment, which is happening in NSW with the TOMRA-Cleanaway deal."
Mr Mathews said there was potential for a Victorian scheme to be charging vendors a different rate than NSW to administer the policy which in turn could see customers having to pay more for drinks in one state than the other.
He also said a situation where sales tax was paid in one state for containers which were then deposited in the other state and a levy collected would remain.
"It's wonderful they're doing it, really exciting news they're doing it, but the broader issues don't go away until 2023," Mr Mathews said.
"We're working with the NSW government, they need to help us for the next three years."
Meanwhile, the four-bin system has been motivated by Victoria's ambition to have an 80 per cent reduction in waste going to landfill by 2030.
Mr Andrews described it as an "important common sense reform" with the glass able to be reused for road base, noise barriers and tables and seats in parks.
The extra bin would be rolled out when council waste contracts are renewed and special arrangements would apply in rural areas.
The move will put Wodonga, Alpine, Indigo and Towong councils at odds with their NSW counterparts, Albury, Federation and Greater councils, in the Halve Waste consortium whose joint contract with waste giant Cleanaway runs until 2024.
Albury and Federation have a three-bin system, while Greater Hume households have two.
Albury deputy mayor Amanda Cohn said that her council was at the "cutting edge" in NSW with an organics bin and she believed the priority statewide should be for other local government areas to get to that point.
She said a four-bin scheme could be looked at in terms of economies of scale with fellow Halve Waste councils, but added "glass has not been a particular problem" in Albury.