Impact of 10-cent refund scheme at over-the-counter points at Riverina supermarkets clear with number of cans and bottles deposited

The IGAs have taken in 510,967 (Henty) and 417,609 (Holbrook) over their counters since December 2017.

“It has taken off enormously,” Holbrook IGA office manager Jan Pye said.

A second shipping container was deposited at her supermarket in November to cater for the receptacles being stored for collection by contractor TOMRA-Cleanaway.

Henty IGA manager Narelle Morey said initially a container at her store was being filled every six weeks and that period had dropped to monthly to fortnightly now.

“We’ve done over 500,000 so we’re quite impressed for a small place like Henty to do that,” Mrs Morey said.

She said there had been some frustration with differences in the tally paid out by the grocery and the figure received by the business from TOMRA-Cleanaway.

Cans with dents and stubbies with missing neck barcodes can contribute to the discrepancy.

Mrs Pye has experienced the same issue.

“There’s definitely been a big discrepancy at times, but we scanned and sent in all our documents and they gave us a top-up, a goodwill gesture they (TOMRA-Cleanaway) called it,” she said.

Mrs Pye said the business had been caught out by a customer’s figure for containers in a bag not matching the actual amount and as a result staff now counted every single bottle or can brought to the store.

“We’ll only accept what we know we’ll get reimbursed for,” she said.

“We’ve had bottles with cigarette butts in and we’ve refused to take them and we’ve had people with broken bottles and we don’t accept broken glass and we don’t accept bottles with liquid in them.”

Mrs Morey said her supermarket would take some containers knowing they may be too dented but provide them on the basis of it being an environmental good.

She said recyclers travelled from Lockhart, Yerong Creek and The Rock to drop off containers.

“They do a bit of shopping and sometimes get something in the hardware store – it’s all a bonus, they’re people we wouldn’t have had before,” Mrs Morey said.

Mrs Pye said she had seen people collecting bottles and cans alongside the Hume Freeway and recyclers rolled in their own wheelie bins filled with containers.

Data released last month showed machine deposit points across Albury and Corowa had swallowed up nearly 20 million containers in the first 12 months of the scheme.