Recycling Issues

01 Mar Recycling Issues

Dear Here to Help,

Government has done a great thing with the bottle recycling scheme. It’s fun to take the bottles with the kids for some spending money. The machines have become faster and easier to use.

However, some problems make it annoying and time-wasting to return containers… the machines are often full on the weekends and some bottles just keep getting rejected.

Where do I go to improve the system?

Thanks for your question.

No system is perfect and it can be fulfilling to help improve the system with good ideas.
When you are providing input to help improve a system, it’s important to focus on ideas for improvement. This makes it more likely that you will encourage positive change. I have addressed this in previous columns.

The website and app for return and earn both use traffic lights to show the current capacity of return centres (red for full, orange for nearly full and green for good). They also give operation hours and other nearby return centres.

Remember to recheck the current capacity of the centre you are heading to, as they are in high use over weekends. Cleaners service the return centres regularly, but if you don’t have time to wait around, it’s best to change course or times to head for a return centre with plenty of capacity.

The machines read the container barcodes and there are a number of reasons barcodes might not work, including:
• Container is on an angle in machine
• Barcode is hidden (eg by the plastic straw holder)
• Container hasn’t been registered yet (if it’s a new flavour or size)

You can ring the return and earn administration 9-5 weekdays to report issues on 1800 290 661.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, March 2024. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to “Here to Help” and let’s see what we can achieve.

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.