Sydney Is Trialling Recycling Vending Machines in the CBD

Sydneysiders need no longer hypothesise about taking all their cans to South Australia, you'll be able to nab a tiny return right here. In a new initiative by the City of Sydney (modelled on successful overseas ventures), a series of vending machines will reward recyclers for throwing in their empty plastic bottles or cans. Sure, the rewards might be food truck vouchers. But it's something.

Still in the trial stages, the machines are ready for feeding on Dixon Street Mall, Haymarket and Alfred St and Circular Quay. These chomping vendors can hold up to 2000 bottles and cans each before reaching capacity. Feeding one of the machines isn't rewarding recyclers in cash money yet, instead you'll nab little freebies — two-for-one food truck vouchers, ten cent donations to charity or entry into the draw for New Year's Eve Dawes Point tickets.

A prevalent and well-established project in the U.S, Norway and Germany, these 'reverse vending machines' have been proven to achieve colossal recycling rates — South Australia's rose up to 90 percent (double the rate of NSW). City of Sydney reported that 15,000 bottles and cans are currently chucked into landfill every minute Australia-wide. That's a crapload of Coke cans.

Contrary to our smug, uppity recycling faces, just over 40 percent of bottles and cans are recycled annually in NSW. People are still throwing their Mount Franklins in with their banana peels.

"In 2013 beverage containers and their associated rubbish made up 41 per cent of the total rubbish and 59 per cent of the top ten rubbish items reported by volunteers in NSW," said Clean-Up Australia founder and chairman, Ian Kiernan AO. "This is a serious problem. We need better ways to capture these containers, turning them from rubbish into a resource. The cleanest and most accessible solution we have seen is the reverse vending model."

While we're not sure if a few raffle tickets will be enough incentive for Sydneysiders to recycle their Passiona cans, it's certainly a start.

Recycle your cans in the Sydney CBD on Dixon Street Mall, Haymarket and Alfred St and Circular Quay.