The Bottle Kids Turn 4
The Bottle Kids all began in 2018 with four young siblings from Prestons wanting to encourage their neighbours to recycle while earning some pocket money along the way. Over the last four years, The Bottle Kids have collected containers from households, local businesses, and events, raising money through the NSW Return and Earn program offering a free bottle collection service.
Since 2019 The Bottle Kids began giving back to the community by donating to charity, starting with Liverpool Hospital Emergency Department. This act of kindness saw them win the Overall Return and Earn Litter Prevention Award at the prestigious Keep Australia Beautiful NSW 2019 Sustainable Cities Awards.
With The Bottle Kids’ fourth Birthday coming up on the 5th of December, they continue to donate a portion of their container deposits to Charities that resonate with them. Prestons Container Return is proud to be the preferred Return and Earn automatic container deposit depot for The Bottle Kids and had the privilege of interviewing the Mother of the four young founders, Colette.
Q: How often do you Return and Earn?
A: We take our bottles to be recycled every few weeks once all our bins are full. On average, over the last twelve months, we have collected approximately 429 bottles per week. Our 4th birthday as The Bottle Kids is coming up on 5 December 2022, and we will be counting up all the bottles we’ve ever collected; stay tuned for the results!
Q: What do you feel about recycling at an automated depot?
A: We love it! It’s so easy, you just tip all your bottles into the machine, and it’s fun to watch them go through the automated sorting process. There’s no way we could collect the number of bottles we do if we had to put them into a machine by hand one at a time. We also love the Drop ‘n’ Go option. These days we like to drop our bins full of bottles off on the weekend and come back to pick up our empty bins when they have been processed.
Q: When did you start recycling for charity? Where did the idea come from?
A: We follow the Barefoot Investor approach with the money we earn. We ‘save’ some money, ‘spend’ some money and ‘donate’ some money. We donate a portion of our money to causes that resonate with us. Our first-ever donation was to the Liverpool Hospital Emergency Department, a place that we have all attended many times. Our youngest Bottle Kid was even born in the Emergency Department!
Q: Have you recycled batteries yet? What do you know about battery recycling?
A: We’ve recycled batteries in the past through a local supermarket, but it took us a long time to remember to take them. When we saw that Prestons Container Return was also a place we could drop off our batteries for recycling, it was so easy to remember because we already had ‘recycling’ on our minds when we took our bottles. It’s great they can take all batteries, even if we don’t know which kind they are!
Like The Bottle Kids, you too can support your community & raise funds for a chosen charity by collecting and depositing drink containers with us.
