While the state government’s scheme to refund 10c on empty bottles and cans may help children and charities with extra cash, any value for those who actually pay for the weekly shop seems pretty thin.
One SunburyLife reader writes to say the container deposit machine at a Rosenthal carpark was faulty the evening he visited with two boxes of “sticky cans and bottles”.
“We had two week’s worth of recycling and I got the job of trundling down to get the cash,” said Charles Coles.
“Two of the four receptacles weren’t working, and about half the items I took along were rejected – even though they had a barcode for the deposit scheme on them. It took 20 minutes to get $1.70 back.
“To cap it off, and given this scheme is all about saving the environment, they are using a generator to power the recycling machine. Pure madness. It sits there all day creating noise and pollution – and taking up a car park space or two too!”
Turning to a recent Facebook post on the scheme, Andrew Portbury said: “Ten cents just isn’t gonna cut it. Being a fairly heavy drinker, I can sort, store, transport my containers, and spend hours of my life all for a whopping $70 a year. The time and fuel alone make this a totally wasted effort for me.”
Michael Bullow says the supermarket he uses raised the price of a slab of water by $3.10 when the scheme was introduced on Wednesday 1 November.
“Are they required to pass the increase to the government to fund this scheme? If so, for 24, 600mil bottles I would get $2.40 back for the inconvenience of standing around putting bottles into one of these machines, who is getting the 70c difference?
What’s been your experience with the container deposit refund machines? Write and let us know…
