The locations of the first collection points for the NSW Government’s Return and Earn scheme have been unveiled, with two reverse vending machines due to start operating in the Bega Valley on Friday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
One collection point is located on the rooftop car park of the Sapphire Marketplace in Bega. Another has been placed outside Bermagui Woolworths on Young Street.
Other towns in the shire will need to drive their empty drink containers to one of these two reverse vending machines to collect their 10 cent refund on each bottle or can.
So how many containers do you need to return to cover the cost of travelling to the collection point?
Like Seinfeld characters Kramer and Newman in The Bottle Deposit episode, we’ve crunched the numbers to find out just how many drink containers are required to turn a profit on the Return and Earn scheme.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average rate of fuel consumption per passenger vehicle in the 2015-2016 financial year was 10.6 litres per 100 kilometres.
Over a 12 month period, Fuel Check recorded the average cost for unleaded 91 petrol to be 128.4 cents a litre in NSW.
Using these numbers, we can determine the average cost of travelling one kilometre is 13.6 cents.
To turn a profit on your trip to the reverse vending machine, you need to recycle at least 1.4 drink containers for every kilometre travelled.
This means an Eden resident would need to collect 72 drink containers to break even on the drive to Bega’s collection point, or 143 drink containers to cover the drive home too.
Find your town below to figure out exactly how many drink containers you should stockpile before heading to the reverse vending machine.
Only some drink containers are eligible to be recycled through the reverse vending machines. For more details, visit the Return and Earn website.