Otago Uni and Frucor Suntory have collaborated to gift students with a reverse vending machine in the Link.
The reverse vending machine recycles cans and plastic bottles in exchange for a voucher discounting a Frucor (who produce energy drinks and RTD coffee) product on campus. Both the Uni and Frucor believe that this machine is the first of its kind in New Zealand, and a cursory Google search backs it up.
According to Ray O’Brien, the head of the Uni’s Sustainability Office, when a UK supermarket introduced reverse vending machines in just five stores, they recycled 5 million plastic bottles in just over a year.
Ray said that fewer than half of the plastic bottles manufactured globally in 2016 were recycled, and the rest ends up in tips, burned, or littered in the environment. In a statement from the Uni, “incentivised reverse vending … has been proven to help stop plastic pollution by offering a convenient and attractive reason to recycle.”
Important to note is that no matter how many items you recycle within the same transaction, you will be given the same voucher as you would if you had just recycled one. Critic experimented with this by recycling 47 cans, expecting a huge pay day, but only received the same Boss coffee voucher for a 20 cent discount.
Critic asked what it would take to suss the Uni a second reverse vending machine, and suggested 17.5 thousand items recycled, to represent the amount of students at Otago Uni. Frucor technically didn’t say no, but said “unfortunately not at this stage”, as the current machine is a trial to encourage students to recycle.
Critic’s can-recycling timekeeper (btw it took 10 seconds per can), Erin Gourley, said that she “really liked the noise it made”, although she was “mystified” as to how it came to the Link. “It has that addictive quality. I definitely want to put more cans in it.”
The head of Frucor’s Sustainability, Ben Walkley, said that initiatives like these are a part of their “long-term plan” and added “there are plenty more initiatives to come”.
The deposited items will be recycled under the Uni’s contract with Waste Management, and the machine can hold up to 1,000 units.
The Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage, announced in 2019 that the Government had begun work on similar thing, but would instead exchange beverage containers for 10 or 20 cents per item. They hoped this would happen around 2022, but it was announced pre-Covid, so who knows when it’ll happen. Either way, the Gov got scooped by Otago.