Return and Earn hits 2 billion
In a major milestone for litter reduction in NSW, Return and Earn has collected 2 billion drink containers and reduced eligible container litter volume by 57 per cent in just over 18 months since it started.
L-R: Tomra Cleanaway CEO James Dorney, Environment Minister Matt Kean and EPA’s Acting Chair Mark Gifford at Eastern Creek facility
To celebrate the milestone the EPA’s Acting CEO Mark Gifford accompanied Environment Minister Matt Kean and Tomra Cleanaway CEO James Dorney to the Cleanaway Eastern Creek Sorting Facility.
Mr Gifford said NSW communities have embraced the litter reduction program, returning an average of 4 million containers per day.
“The phenomenal success of Return and Earn is a result of the scheme having fundamentally changed people’s thinking and behaviour about litter,” Mr Gifford said.
“In just 19 months, the people of NSW have embraced Return and Earn to return 2 billion containers through the network and helped to more than halve litter from eligible containers in our environment,” Mr Gifford said.
“In addition, they have donated more than $440,000 to around 350 schools, charities, community and sporting groups who have featured on reverse vending machines across NSW as donation partners, while hundreds of local collections and fundraisers are also going on.
“This shows an amazing uptake for the Return and Earn litter-reduction cause with at least 81% of people supporting the scheme and millions of people - every second adult - in NSW is using it.”
Mr Gifford said that the scheme design was behind the success.
“Return and Earn was designed around three key principles – to incentivise via the10-cent refund, to be convenient and accessible with three different types of return points now in around 640 locations, and to deliver a fun, easy to use model including Australia’s first use of reverse vending machine technology.
“This design has led to a world class scheme that has achieved beyond our expectations and will continue to deliver environmental, social and economic benefits to the people of NSW.”
“It is heartening to see so much support for the scheme and it leaves me confident and excited for future achievements as we move towards collecting the 3 billionth container,” Mr Gifford said.
Return and Earn includes around 640 return points across NSW including reverse vending machines, staffed automated depots and over the counter sites. For more information about Return and Earn, visit www.returnandearn.org.au
Top five performing Return and Earn sites:
- Granville (14.8 million)
- Marrickville (14.3 million)
- Wagga Wagga North (13.6 million)
- Casula (13.5 million)
- Marsfield (13.5 million)
2 billion returned containers is equal to:
- 8 trips around Australia
- 166 return trips between Sydney and Melbourne
- About 75% of a trip to the moon
Container compliance deadline 1 December 2019
To minimise initial disruption to some business processes from the introduction of Return and Earn, a two-year transition period is in place until 1 December 2019. The transition period was established to give suppliers two years to make the necessary changes to cans, labels and barcodes to comply with the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery (Container Deposit Scheme) Regulation 2017 (the Regulation).
However, in less than four months, from 1 December 2019, all containers supplied in NSW must be compliant with the Regulation by