D & M Scrap Metal is now taking in 70,000 containers a week, compared to 20,000 in January when they became a deposit point.

Company director Danielle O’Toole said trailers of cans and bottles were being towed from Albury because recyclers did not have time to deposit large loads through the vending machines in the city.

“To give you an example we had some Scouts from Albury and Wodonga who came out with a trailer with containers they had collected from a concert,” she said.

Ms O’Toole now has one new full-time worker, a casual doing four hours per weekday and her two teenage children on a part-time basis to process containers.

Meanwhile, the number of cans and bottles put through Albury’s two vending machines continue to balloon.

The Springdale Heights unit will this week pass the two million mark for receivals, while the machine at Norris Park has taken in more than 1.5 million.

Springdale Heights IGA owner Bob Mathews, who has the machine at his supermarket, said containers were now being collected thrice a day from the machine.

That has allowed the unit to be operating for more hours each day.

“There are now more people using it because it is no longer out of order as much and there is more rubbish,” Mr Mathews said.

He wondered how the mass of leftover packaging sat with Albury’s Greens deputy mayor Amanda Cohn.

Cr Cohn said it was “obviously not ideal”.

“I think people aren’t intentionally doing the wrong thing, what it shows is there are not enough outlets for people to dispose of these things,” she said.

Cr Cohn echoed the sentiment expressed last month by her council colleague Henk van de Ven that a vending machine should be at Albury tip.

“I’d love to see that and our tip is so well set up for people to dispose of their recyclables, it does makes sense for people to take all their rubbish at once,” Cr Cohn said. 

Meanwhile, Henty’s collection point has had 62,560 containers since January.