Those collectors rummaging through our bins? Our recycling system relies on them

Bags stuffed with hundreds of plastic bottles and cans line the inside of Andres Maghacut’s hatchback. He rifles through, moving the containers to a large green return bin, which he then wheels to the counter to exchange for cash.

The Rockdale resident spends hours every day traversing suburbs across Sydney to collect more than 2000 stray plastic bottles and cans a week.

Maghacut, 64, started collecting litter three years ago to supplement his family’s income after a shoulder accident put him out of work. The $200 a week helps buy necessities such as fuel and groceries.

“Petrol, food, rent, everything is going up. Life in Australia, everything is expensive. It feels like too much of a squeeze,” Maghacut said.

Since the state’s Return and Earn scheme started in December 2017, collectors such as Maghacut have returned 13.7 billion bottles and cans to the 669 vending machines, centres, and depots across the state, earning more than $1.3 billion.

Two out of every three eligible drink containers are now returned, and 1.1 million tonnes have been recycled as a result. As this masthead has reported, the density of plastic pollution fell 39 per cent over a decade in coastal areas around Australia’s cities, in part due to container deposit schemes.

Andres Maghacut frequents the Mascot Return and Earn depot three or four times a week.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong

Yet the system has also created an army of badly paid and insecure workers, the risk of exploitation, and annoyance for neighbours. Are the environmental benefits coming at a social cost?

Maghacut is focused on collecting litter, but container collectors going through private bins have become a familiar sight on Sydney streets and an ongoing debate in neighbourhood Facebook groups.

One camp complains that the collectors make noise going through bins in the early morning, trespass on private property and leave rubbish strewn on the ground. The other side holds that the collectors are doing a public service and urges compassion.

Some people say they try to help the collectors out by pre-sorting their recycling and leaving the refundable containers in a separate box. Others try that, only to find that the box gets taken by the first collector, leaving everyone else to rummage through the wheelie bin.

South Sydney local Alice Hawkins speaks for many in voicing her misgivings, despite being pleased overall that the container deposit scheme gave people who were not in traditional employment an opportunity to supplement their income.

“I don’t like when people go into people’s private bins and take things out,” Hawkins said. “I see that a lot in my area.”

Kristin O’Connell from the Anti-Poverty Centre said it was distressing that the few dollars that someone could earn from spending hours collecting containers was necessary to anyone’s survival.

“If the government values the environmental impact of these schemes, they should create proper jobs to do waste sorting,” O’Connell said. “There are lots of places around the world where waste sorting is a job.”

It takes Rockdale resident Andres Maghacut hours every day to collect enough bottles and cans to earn $200 a week.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong

In some areas, residents observe collectors being driven around in vans. It is not clear whether the collector is working in partnership or being exploited in a form of modern slavery.

O’Connell said she had no evidence that coercive relationships were occurring in container collecting, but it would not be surprising since many people were excluded from Centrelink payments and vulnerable to exploitation.

The state government initiative between the NSW Environment Protection Authority, scheme co-ordinator Exchange for Change and network operator TOMRA Cleanaway was designed to provide an incentive for ordinary people to take their own containers back to collection points. Exchange for Change chief executive Danielle Smalley said eight of 10 adults in NSW had participated in Return and Earn, including fundraising for a charity or community group, and most people did it monthly.

Heidi Tait from Tangaroa Blue Foundation, an environmental charity focused on removing and preventing marine litter, said the container deposit schemes were better environmentally than mixed household recycling bins because it reduced contamination.

“The complexity with the recycling bin at home is that there’s no consistency across the country, so it depends on what council area you’re in,” Tait said. “You get that contamination of people when they ‘wishcycle’, they’re like, ‘can we recycle this?’”

Contamination also meant broken glass or packaging made of multiple materials, she added.

Tait said the 10¢ refund needed to be increased, not only to boost the income of collectors but also to encourage wider participation. She said the experience in other states had been high initial involvement, but this waned as the novelty wore off.

However, Smalley said: “Any change in the container refund amount is a NSW government decision that also needs to consider a range of other factors such as impact on schemes in other jurisdictions and the impact on the beverage industry.”

Recycling hotspots

In Sydney, the local government areas with the highest number of containers returned were Fairfield, Blacktown, Canterbury Bankstown, and the Central Coast.

Fairfield had a total of 125 million containers returned in 2024, the most of any Sydney council, and the average resident returned 602 containers each, almost three times the city average.

Mosman, Woollahra and North Sydney councils had both the lowest number of containers returned, and the lowest number per person.

The tiny LGA of Lane Cove had a low volume of containers returned, but the average resident returned 437 containers in 2024, the fourth-highest of any Sydney council.

Sutherland Shire Council is installing baskets for the collection of recyclable containers alongside public bins in 40 high-profile locations, after a successful trial. Mayor Jack Boyd said this would boost local recycling efforts, while also letting people “pay it forward” to those who use the scheme to earn money.

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