COVID-19 disrupted 2020. Sorry for the LONG delay in posts; but we're hopeful that we're back here and should be back onto posting regularly. We've kept up with our own sustainable processes but the main highlight in the past few months for us has been that Containers for Change in WA is finally here!
When we read the announcement back in mid-2019 that Western Australia would finally be participating in the 10c refund scheme, we were so excited. We live in a strata block of twelve units who don't mind a casual bevvie, so we bought two garbage bins and started collecting. It's been a MESSY number of months and I won't lie, I am RELIEVED that our courtyard no longer has boxes of empty cans and bottles.
You can set up your account here: https://consumer.containersforchange.com.au/create-account?scheme=WA which allows you to designate a bank account for any cash returns. At the recycling centres, you can decide whether to claim your returns OR to donate them to a charity (our refunds have gone directly into a high interest savings account we set up for our doggo). Some centres also allow refunds to come out in the form of Coles vouchers.
Our local TOMRA Recycling Centre in Belmont is only a 5 minute drive away (yay!) and it is super easy to use! The staff are keen to help out, and very friendly.
There are usually half shopping trolleys inside for you to use to cart in your bundles of recyclables.
We had already separated our containers into plastic, glass and cans which was really useful because the reverse vending machines only take certain types of containers; plastic and cans in one, and glass in another.
Hints and Tips:
- DON'T crush anything. We really struggled with this because there was no information online about this. Basically the reverse vending machine needs to be able to:
a) read the barcode and b) "sense" the size of the container.
Unfortunately we cushed all our cans (because there were SO many of them), and
sadly the recycling centre doesn't take crushed cans (we estimate that we had about 300 cans which of course we just recycling normally).
It's also challenging if plastic bottles are crushed (don't do this!) because the cheaper plastic bottles don't "un-crush" easily and it really slows you down at the reverse vending machine.
- have a designated collection place at home
Splitting your containers into plastic/cans and bottles at home, will make life easier at the recycling centre. TOMRA have free bags you can use (and the reverse vending machines also have hooks to hang those bags on!).
Otherwise Bunnings sells similar 105L moving bags that would also suit.
- bring headphones
It can be really noisy in the TOMRA centre is there are multiple groups of people recycling at once OR if it's empty, it's DEAD SILENT. If you've got a large number of items to recycle, I strongly recommend music to liven things up.
- take your caps and lids off the containers and bring separately
Containers must not have lids or caps on them when recycled. However most of the recycling centres have a drop point for these items, so add a collection point at home. We used to recommend that you collect these separately for the Envision Hands Project, however this options seems to be a better alternative.
Comentarios