Better ways to increase recycling
In reply to Bruce Hyland's letter, "The most cumbersome and unfriendly refund process" (Peninsula News 583, November 27), I would like to add some extra information.
The system Bruce is referring to is the NSW Government's current container deposit scheme, called Return and Earn, which began in 2017.
Plenty of information about the scheme can be found on the Return and Earn website.
I can sympathise with Bruce's frustrations with the system.
The only daily container return point on the Peninsula is the Reverse Vending Machine in Oval Ave, Woy Woy, opposite Woy Woy Oval, though you can also return containers over the counter fortnightly on the second and fourth Tuesday at Umina Beach and Ocean Beach Surf Life Saving Clubs.
Apparently there used to be a Reverse Vending Machine at the Umina Mall shopping centre until it burnt down in January 2019.
Hopefully the new replacement shopping centre, Lone Pine Plaza, which opened on December 2, will eventually include a Reverse Vending Machine too.
If you choose payment by a "refund voucher" as Bruce did, the designated supermarket to use the voucher at is Woolworths.
There is a Woolworths store around the corner in the Peninsula Plaza shopping centre, and also one in the West St shops in Umina.
You can also choose electronic payment either to your bank account or to one of two charities, either the RFS Benevolent Fund or WIRES Central Coast.
The machines are indeed, as Bruce said, "very dainty about what is acceptable".
Containers must "be in good condition (not be crushed or broken)", "be empty" and "have the label attached".
Non-refundable containers include milk bottles and cartons, glass wine and spirit bottles, cordial bottles, and pure juice containers and flavoured milk containers over one litre in size.
In addition, the brand, beverage and type of container must be registered with the Return and Earn scheme. (The website has an online search tool to find out if the container is registered.)
Bruce asks what happens to the "unclaimed deposits", that is to the money that could have been claimed for containers that are not taken to a return point, such as those put in residents' Council yellow recycling bins.
The website says that the operators of a Council's material recovery facilities are permitted to claim the refund on eligible containers, and it is expected that these operators will share a part of these refunds with the Council.
Unclaimed deposits for any other containers, eg those put in residents' red landfill bins and Council litter bins, stay within the scheme's coffers to reduce operating costs.
Another limitation of the scheme is the fact that some of the people returning containers have obtained them from residents' yellow recycling bins when they are put out in the street for garbage collection day.
Since the main purpose of container deposit schemes is to increase the number of containers that are recycled, it makes you wonder how many of the containers taken to the return points are ones which would have been recycled anyway.
Perhaps the government should be putting the money into other ways of increasing recycling and the use of recyclable containers.
SOURCE:
Email, 4 Dec 2023
Tim Slocum, Umina