will expand its scheme<\/a> in July 2026, and the Northern Territory government plans to make changes by August 2027, with a two-year transition period.<\/p>\nLarger drink containers such as cordial, juice concentrates and flavoured milk bottles will also be added.<\/p>\n
Burden for ‘mum and dad’ producers<\/p>\n
Wine Australia data shows there are 2,156 wineries across the country.<\/p>\n
Many of these are small-scale, such as 919 Wines in South Australia’s Riverland, run by husband-and-wife team Jenny and Eric Semmler.<\/p>\n
![\"Jenny,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cecb5fd320dba7cfcabcab7c8c36e217\")
<\/p>\n
Jenny Semmler says including wine bottles in the container deposit scheme will add extra costs to her business. (ABC News: Shannon Pearce)<\/p>\n
Ms Semmler said recycling schemes were a big ask for family businesses, with the costs adding up to thousands of extra dollars a year.<\/p>\n
“Every bottle we have to pay 13 cents for, while the consumer gets back 10 cents,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ms Semmler said having multiple state-based schemes would also increase administrative work.<\/p>\n
“The requirements for reporting are fairly onerous,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I can see a whole lot of mum and dad producers who are not all over the compliance system falling out of it.<\/p>\n
“A lot of very small producers don’t have barcodes and that’s a mandatory requirement for being part of the scheme.”<\/p>\n
These sentiments have been echoed by others in the industry.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2abe1cad2f1738fbeb70d8cc6021fb22\")
<\/p>\n
Paul Zerella says he is sceptical about the benefits of adding wine bottles to the scheme. (ABC News: Stephen Opie)<\/p>\n
Project Wine managing director Paul Zerella provides a range of services for wineries, including reporting for recycling schemes.<\/p>\n
“Anybody who sells even one bottle in Queensland, as I understand it, needs to fill in the stat dec [statutory declaration],” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a lot of extra work and trouble for no real return.”<\/p>\n
Mr Zerella said introducing administrative assistance and a cost-free threshold would ease the strain on smaller operators.<\/p>\n
“Tasmania, for example, has a system where anyone selling less than 20,000 units per annum is not required to pay, but they’re still required to do the paperwork,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It will be seen to be a bit of an overkill and overreach when they sell so few into some of these markets.”![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/46f1e43d45a1c7ddd0ea4a8bcc3d8700\")
<\/p>\n
Small wineries worry they will bear the burden of costs from the inclusion of wine bottles in the recycling scheme. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)<\/p>\n
Cutting their losses<\/p>\n
South Australian Wine Industry Association (SAWIA) chief executive Inca Lee said discussions with the government were in the early stages.<\/p>\n
![\"Inca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0a82d6fef13df307a2d02e1f2f253fb9\")
<\/p>\n
Inca Lee says the wine industry hopes the government will consider their recommendations. (ABC South East SA: Elsie Adamo)<\/p>\n
“They [governments] have expressed the intention to have a national portal to register products, but they haven’t extended that to reporting requirements and also payment requirements on wine makers,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s untenable to have a winemaker reporting and paying to five different jurisdictions.”<\/p>\n
Ms Lee said expanding the scheme could cost South Australian wine makers $40 million annually.<\/p>\n
“Some smaller wine makers have actually chosen not to ship wine into Queensland because of the cost burden,” she said.<\/p>\n
In a statement to the ABC, Environment Minister Lucy Hood said the Environmental Protection Authority was exploring measures to support smaller producers, including a national portal and reduced reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Container Deposit Schemes are loved by consumers for getting a little cash back, but South Australian wine businesses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,164980,99,164979,164981,3810,6878,11573,42387,97498],"class_list":["post-285769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barossa-valley","tag-business","tag-container-deposit-scheme","tag-new-recycling-scheme","tag-recycling","tag-riverland","tag-south-australian-government","tag-wine","tag-wine-bottles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}