Why is it so important?
Single-use containers, if not recycled end up in landfill, and our environment
Why we need the Container Deposit Schemes?
Plastic products such as bottles and packaging have been made integral to modern daily life. They are easily manufactured, light weight and solve a variety of challenges. They are produced for a relatively low cost compared with other materials, and predominantly designed for single use.
Consumption of plastic has increased exponentially. While plastic and packaging recycling in Australia is well established, only approximately 12% is recovered for recycling.
Since the year 2000, we’ve used more plastic than in all the years before.
On average in Australia, we each use approximately 103 kg of plastic a year and generate a collective total of more than 300 million tons of plastic waste.
By 2030, this is predicted to double, with the brunt of the impacts expected to hit our oceans.
Why do we need to return our containers?
It takes approximately 450 years for a single-use plastic bottle to completely degrade.
Virtually every piece of plastic that was ever made still exists in the environment, except the small amount that has been incinerated!
Single use containers if not recycled end up in landfill, the land environment or our oceans. This problem will not go away!
We think: “I can’t fix the problem alone”, but you can be a spoke in the wheel that turns the tide.
Recycling reduces the need for extracting, refining and processing raw materials.
When we recycle we are helping to reduce the impacts of:
Massive ocean fish kills
Burning fossil fuels
Industrial (air) pollution
Mining raw materials
3rd world dumping
Our own personal footprint
Your contribution helps tackle climate change!
Recycling saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps to tackle climate change.
Your small contribution will be multiplied by hundreds and thousands in each community as we all band together and accept that it is the right thing to do.
There are so many facts available that it gets a bit overwhelming. It’s a bit of a doom and gloom scenario but we can work one by one to make a change.
We return our containers for cash
Our containers go back into the cycle
We reduce our damage to the environment
We continue to help change the tide
Why we created the
Refund Bag
This is a journey that has been long, but with a great goal always in sight.
My wife and I (Sally and Matt) are passionate about recycling and doing our bit to help make our world a better place.
The Refund Bag was inspired by a need for simplicity and convenience.
We saw both the environmental and financial benefits from participating in our state refund scheme as soon as it started but had the problem of separating and storing our containers.
We tried re-usable plastic boxes and garbage bags but had to deal with a mess when it came time to transport for our refunds. We thought about a separate bin, but this still didn’t make sense.
I have a basic engineering background so put pen to paper and came up with a concept which addressed all these problems.
Over 2 years, we have designed, stitched, molded, modified, tested, refined, and sought a mass of feed-back to finally come up with our final product.
On our journey, we were amazed at how many people are really passionate about recycling and helping the environmental impact of disposable containers. This helped us to push on to the manufacturing stage, investing a large sum of our savings towards what we hope will be a popular and environmentally beneficial product.
We will be working hard to promote our product and would be grateful if you helped by telling your friends and colleagues.
Every Refund Bag used will be a plus towards reducing our un-necessary environmental pollution – and you get to make money at the same time!
Matt Griffith
Boomerang Alliance have taken up the challenge to help reduce our impact on the environment. In 2003 Dave West and a group of passionate people began to campaign for a container deposit system across Australia and decided to create an alliance among all sorts of environmental groups. Check it out
