In support of the State Government’s latest recycling initiative a new structure has landed in the north-eastern corner of the Leagues Club car park.
A Reverse Vending Machine, where consumers can return recyclable cans as well as plastic and glass bottles, for a cash or voucher return, has been installed as the first RVM in the Sutherland Shire.
Cronulla MP Mark Speakman, Miranda MP Eleni Petinos and Sharks NRL squad members Chad Townsend and Valentine Holmes were today on hand to open the RVM for the Return and Earn container deposit scheme.
“Return and Earn is the largest litter reduction initiative ever introduced in NSW,” Mr Speakman said. “It aims to tackle drink container litter, which makes up nearly half of all litter in NSW.
“Around 160 million drink containers are littered in NSW each year. South Australia has had a scheme for many decades and has the lowest proportion of drink container litter in Australia.”
Ms Petinos added; “There has already been widespread community uptake of Return and Earn, with over 35 million containers returned across the state since 1 December.”
The containers that are eligible are those most commonly found in litter, while excluding flavoured milk or fruit juice containers 1 litre or more, milk containers and wine and spirit glass bottles.
The RVMs are a bank of four in the Sharks Leagues Club car park nearest to Fitness First on the eastern side.
The facility joins 10 over-the-counter collection points in the Shire at Cronulla, Caringbah, Caringbah South, Sylvania, Greys Point, Oyster Bay, Bonnet Bay, Sutherland, Loftus and Menai.
RVMs provide refunds of 10 cents per eligible container in three ways, including a voucher redeemable at a participating retailer (Woolworths, in the case of the new RVM at the Sharks), a direct payment to a bank account via PayPal, or a donation to one of the charities shown on the machine’s screen.
Over-the-counter collection points accept smaller quantities of eligible drink containers and provide a cash refund.
While redevelopment works are in the Club’s imminent future, the Sharks are committed to assisting with the government’s recycling strategy, with Interim CEO Paul Eriksson explaining that in all likelihood the RVM will remain on ‘Sharks’ land even once the construction begins.
“The Reverse Vending Machine will remain where it is until the redevelopment starts, when we will look at relocating it on site,” Mr Eriksson said. “We can’t as yet commit to a start date of the development but we can stress our continued commitment to recycling.”
For more information, including eligible drink containers and collection point locations, visit www.returnandearn.org.au.
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More about Reverse Vending Machines
The ultimate in recycling technology, our RVM’s work the opposite way to a traditional vending machine. With an RVM, rather than depositing money and retrieving a beverage, you deposit your eligible container and bank the refund. Pretty good, don’t you think?
Reverse vending machines are pretty picky things. They happily accept eligible bottles, cans and containers but will reject any item not covered by the container deposit scheme. That means cutting out contamination and achieving 100% resource recovery rates.
As for using an RVM, when a user deposits a bottle or can, the RVM will scan the barcode on the container, determine its eligibility under the CDS, crush and sort the container, and credit the user’s Crunch account with the refund amount.
The machines love empty drink cans and plastic bottles.
A HOT TIP for using an RVM.
Remove the lids before popping containers in the RVM. Lids are made of a different type plastic to the bottles, and removing them helps things go smoothly during the recycling process.
