Whether you like it or not, Labour just imposed a 10 cents tax on every beverage container, including aluminium or steel beer cans and every plastic water or soft drink bottle.
And those worst hit by that tax are the poor and infirm – the very category of the population least able to bear additional financial burdens at a time of high inflation.
The scheme, operated by BCRS (Beverage Container Refund Scheme Ltd), is conveniently packaged as a laudable recycling initiative based on what BCRS Ltd brags, on its website, are its values: integrity, respect and efficiency.
The scheme imposes on each and every consumer the added burden of collecting empty bottles in a pristine condition – undented, unscratched – with their bar code still visible, transporting them to a reverse- vending site and then physically depositing each and every container one by one only to be given a voucher.
The consumer is then obliged to retain that voucher which can only be redeemed in specific outlets not for its equivalent monetary value but in return for other goods purchased from that particular establishment.
BCRS Ltd knows full well many won’t bother going through the hassle.
Indeed, they’re betting on it. Because for every unreturned bottle or beer can, BCRS makes a 10 cents profit – for doing nothing.
For those who do take the trouble to carefully preserve intact every beverage container, carry those containers to a reverse-vending machine, pray that the machine is not already full, hope that it will read the barcode on each container deposited one by one, collect the redeemable voucher and actually redeem it, BCRS Ltd will still be making a profit.
They will be selling the recyclable containers for actual recycling overseas. Because they could not be bothered setting up a recycling facility locally, which would avoid the additional environmental damage of transporting the recycled containers.
Labour’s government had the option to issue the licence for the scheme as a ‘not-for-profit’ model. Of course, Labour being Labour wasn’t going to pass a money-making opportunity by. So, it issued the licence to the ‘for-profit’ BCRS Ltd. BCRS now stands to make huge profits.
As the Times of Malta pointed out, most of that profit will come from people ‘not bothering’ to go through the circuitous process of redeeming their 10 cent tax. The sad truth is that many don’t have a choice. For the poor and infirm, it’s not a matter of ‘not bothering’. It’s simply a sheer impossibility for them to redeem their money.
Many elderly, infirm and disabled citizens either shop from local smaller outlets close to their homes or order their shopping online. For many, their shopping is delivered to their home. That’s not out of choice but out of physical circumstances that prevent them from being able to travel to large supermarkets and carry their shopping.
Many others shop locally simply because they don’t own a car and cannot afford to pay the additional cost of a taxi service to and from outlets with reverse-vending machines. Many other elderly, infirm and disabled persons depend on relatives, neighbours and friends to do their shopping for them. Many would be too embarrassed to request their helpers to take the additional trouble of collecting their used beverage containers, transport them to the reverse-vending machines, collect their voucher and redeem them on their behalf.
The scheme imposes on each and every consumer the added burden of collecting empty bottles in a pristine condition- Kevin Cassar
This category of our population will have no option but to forfeit the 10 cents on each bottle. They will be forced to pay. Many lack the transport, the strength and energy. Others simply cannot. What are their options? Only two: either stop consuming those products which are part of the BCRS scheme or pay Labour’s tax. And make BCRS richer.
As for the rest, the profit-making BCRS Ltd is harnessing the time and energy of the nation for its own enrichment. Many would have been willing to make the additional effort if the profit generated were being invested in other green projects, if the whole process were transparent and well-intentioned.
BCRS could have used the profit generated to organise a collection scheme for elderly, infirm and disabled citizens unable to return those containers, to shield them from Labour’s new tax. Instead, the people sizzle with resentment at being coerced to work for BCRS’s profit, knowing that, whether they cooperate or not, BCRS will prosper. If you don’t reclaim your money, BCRS wins. If you do, they win too – a classic case of tails they win, heads you lose. And the ones losing the most, as a percentage of their income, are the poorest.
Now is hardly the time to penalise the least affluent. Now is not the time to burden those struggling with their finances with an additional tax. And why was this necessary? Weren’t those very people already making the effort to separate their waste? Weren’t the contents of the grey bag being recycled already? Weren’t those people not already spending more of their precious cash on purchasing different coloured bags to separate their waste?
So, what is the advantage of the new scheme? If those plastic bottles were already being recycled, why was the BCRS scheme necessary? Well, we all know the answer.
We know exactly who is benefitting from this scheme. And it’s not the planet, it’s not our environment, it’s not our climate – it’s the pockets of those running the scheme and those within Labour who enabled them.
It came as no surprise that the shameless profit-making scheme was initially thought up by Yorgen Fenech, Keith Schembri and promoted by Joseph Muscat. We all know where Labour’s priorities lie. We all know what motivates them: money and power.
What drives them is not beneficence, altruism or social responsibility. It’s not socialism either. It’s a greed so insatiable that they are ready to steal from the poor and infirm to reward their rich friends.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.