Return and Earn gets bigger and better

RETURN AND EARN MACHINES HUNGRY FOR MORE

Returners and Earners in the Tamworth region will be counting their pennies with the machines now accepting more containers like glass wine and spirit bottles and larger containers.

Member for Tamworth Kevin Anderson said this would be great news for many in the community who were keen to recycle more while earning a little extra money for themselves or for charity.

“The return and earn program has proven to be hugely popular in our communities with hundreds jumping at the chance to recycle and add another form of income,” Mr Anderson said. “One of the biggest frustrations since the machines were first opened has been the limited kinds of bottles, cans and containers than can be accepted so it’s great news that the machines will soon accept wine bottles and spirit bottles.”

Consultation is now open on the Scheme’s expansion, which would see almost all beverage containers between 150 ml and 3 litres accepted for refund.

For example, this would include:

• Wine and spirits in glass bottles
• Cordials and juice concentrate
• Larger containers up to 3 litres of beverages already in the scheme, such as flavoured milk, fruit and vegetable juice, cask wine and sachets. 

Plain milk and health tonics would continue to be excluded from the scheme.

Currently, Return and Earn accepts drink containers such as cans, beer and mixer bottles, cartons, juice boxes and poppers.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority will be holding targeted stakeholder information sessions and webinars in the coming months around NSW so a transition can be as smooth as possible for new suppliers to the scheme.

The discussion paper Driving NSW’s circular economy is available at https://yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/ and will be open for consultation until 5pm 2 December 2022.

For more information about Return and Earn visit www.returnandearn.org.au