Tenterfield’s own reverse vending machines were carefully placed by crane into position behind Tenterfield Pool on Tuesday morning February 27, with technicians now in the process of hooking them up to become operational hopefully by the end of Thursday, March 1.
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“Council staff and TOMRA Cleanaway have worked hard to ensure that the reverse vending machines will be available to the residents of Tenterfield Shire,” Mayor Peter Petty said.
While the majority of respondents in an online poll preferred having the facility at the rear of the Coles complex, the pool-side site was the second most popular option with 31 per cent of the vote. Cr Petty said the site fulfilled several required operational criteria including ease of access for the community and a location on council property.
Littering of unaccepted bottles and cans around the machines has become a problem at other locations, and one which may also cause this council headaches. Only undamaged containers (cans and bottles with labels) with the 10 cent refund printed on the container will be accepted by the machine.
The reverse vending machine operates using electronic payments, vouchers or donations only. Organisations redeeming vouchers or registered to receive the donation are yet to be disclosed, but electronic payments require a Paypal account.
This doesn’t mean you have to log into Paypal at the machine each time, though. Instead download the myTOMRA App to your smartphone and create a TOMRA profile. Then just scan the barcode generated by the app before you start feeding in containers and select the Paypal option at completion.
While council is providing the site for the reverse vending machine it won’t be dealing with any issues with payment or containers as these are outside its scope. Complaints for the scheme have to be directed to TOMRA Cleanaway at 1800 290 691 or via an online form.
The Container Deposit Scheme began in December last year, with original plans for council to operate a manual collection but this proved not to be cost effective.
MP Thomas George had earlier apologised that a solution was slow in coming, saying it took some time to determine the best place for the machines. The project is actually ahead of schedule, with the facility originally projected to become available by the end of March.
“I would like to thank The Hon Thomas George MP for his advocacy in getting this facility to Tenterfield,” Cr Petty said.
