Australia’s first vending centre to open in Ballina

THE new air-conditioned centre has six indoor machines and will open on Tuesday.

AUSTRALIA'S first Reverse Vending Centre will open tomorrow in Ballina.

Located at 42 De Havilland Crescent, in the Ballina Industrial Estate, the new airconditioned centre will be an expansion from the previous return point.

The venue will be fitted with six indoor reverse vending machines, to provide additional capacity for returned bottles and cans.

Operating hours will be Monday to Friday, 7am to 7pm; Sundays and public holidays 9am to 6pm.

The new Return and Earn centre, run in conjunction with recycling company Tomra, will provide the community with a convenient recycling solution, and contribute to the more than 2.6 billion containers returned across the state since 2017.

Tomra president Ryan Buzzell said there had been a significant reduction in the volume of littered drink containers in NSW since the launch of Return and Earn, which might otherwise end up in our waterways or landfill.

"Return and Earn offers beverage containers the best chance to be recycled back into new containers and we are excited to provide this family friendly venue give Ballina locals the opportunity to convert their trash to cash," Mr Buzzell explained.

OPENS TODAY: The new Tomra Reverse Vending Centre in Ballina is the first of its kind in Australia.

Besides providing the community with a 10c refund for eligible containers, the centre is also offering generous recyclers the chance to raise money for local charities, not for profit organisations and community groups by opting to forgo their pocketed cash to donate.

Until February 23, 2020, locals can select Bottles for the Bush, on reverse vending machines as their charity of choice with 10 cents from each container going towards helping rural families doing it tough during the drought and bushfire season.

This option is part of a nationwide recycling appeal that aims to raise $250,000 towards the delivery of hay, water, live stock feed and food supplies to impacted communities.

Through Return and Earn, consumers receive a 10c refund for each eligible drink container returned at any of the 640 return points across NSW.

The scheme has changed people's thinking and behaviour towards litter.

More than 12 million 579 thousand containers have been returned in Ballina since the scheme began in town.

For more details visit https://www.mytomra.com.au

Originally published as