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Brenda Ziga Herald Reporter

The Environmental Management Agency is working on a law that will see deposits or levies being charged on plastic beverage bottles, an official has revealed.

The new law, which is meant to protect the environment, will help reduce and clean up litter by recovering beverage containers for recycling. For example, consumers can pay deposit when purchasing a beverage container and receive a refund when returning the container to a store or redemption center.

Speaking during a Zanu-PF Provincial Secretaries for Environment and Tourism Induction Workshop held in Norton on Friday, EMA director general Mrs Dorothy Chasi said the agency had already come up with the statutory instrument draft meant to put levies or deposits on plastic beverage containers.

“It is a draft statutory instrument to put levies or deposits on plastic beverage containers and food containers so that people keep them and claim back their deposits or to put a levy, it is not yet clear but I think it is going to the deposit route.

“There is a draft so we are still consulting the industry itself, companies who produce the beverages, retailers, environmental organizations and also the public at large,” she said.

Currently, deposit is only being charged on glass bottles from Delta Beverages.