The revolutionary plan to pay residents to recycle
An inner-city building in Brisbane could potentially be the site of a new recycling revolution.
The building next to Davies Park in Montague Road West End could be the first of hundreds throughout Queensland where people can take their recycling and return it for cash.
For many people, it will be as simple as feeding it back into a vending machine.
“West Enders are going to really embrace this,” Brisbane councillor Jonathan Sri said.
“They are sustainability conscious, they really care about the environment, and this gives them another way to do that.”
If approved, the building will become a container refund depot – its star attraction 10 “return and earn” vending machines.
Proponents of recycling are hailing it as a major breakthrough.
“We want people to be able to walk down out of their apartments and drop off their recycling on their way to work,” Cr Sri said.
For most people it will be a simple case of bringing your recycling to the refund depot, placing it in one of the vending machines which will instantly pay into your account 10 cents for each eligible container.
The “return and earn” network operator TOMRA has installed 82,000 such sites across the globe.
This would be the first of about 300 statewide.
The Container Refund Scheme begins in November.
