Local sporting clubs and volunteer organisations have lost a crucial income source after the Little Yarra Ranges Egg Farm recyclable refund point was shut down last December.
Yarra Junction Sporting Clubs, which includes the cricket club and football club, has hit out at the network operator Visy’s decision to close the refund point and labelled the alternative reverse vending machine as unsuitable.
“It’s totally disgusting,” a Yarra Junction Sporting Clubs spokesperson said.
Time poor volunteers would exchange cans for cash at the egg farm’s refund point as part of the State Government’s Container Deposit Scheme (CDS Vic).
The egg farm’s large capacity meant bulk amounts could be processed quickly, making it ideal for organisations to collect recyclables over time to deposit.
But the reverse vending machine in Yarra Junction requires recyclables to be deposited individually, turning quick 20 minute drop offs into hour-long slogs.
“Sometimes we would have taken 1500 cans [to the egg farm], probably not every week, but fortnightly. The other day, we went to the one in Yarra Junction and put in 600 cans, and it took us over an hour.”
Little Yarra Ranges Egg Farm co-owner Glenn Gimmill said volunteers would stop using the scheme as they simply don’t have the time to process the cans.
“They’re not going to stand at a machine and feed into because at the end of the day they’re volunteers, they haven’t got hours up their sleeve to do it.”
The Yarra Junction Sporting Clubs made around $6000 from the scheme.
“It was great for funding facilities, to fix stuff at the club rooms, things like that. It would finance any repairs at the clubrooms.”
State Eildon MP Cindy McLeish said members of the community were “sitting on their cans” in hopes the egg farm refund point would reopen.
“Volunteers don’t have that time on their hands and what I’m hearing is that they’re sitting on their cans and plastics bottles hoping that it reopens
“The egg farm refund point was easy, it had space, it was not obtrusive, people could drive in there easily, turn around, the setup was really good.”
The Little Yarra Ranges Egg Farm announced on 17 December its recyclable container refund point was shut down for not performing its contractual obligations.
After issuing a formal breach notice to the egg farm, Visy shut the site down on 18 December for breaching its contractual obligations, though the egg farm owners claimed Visy’s reasons for the closure were unfair.
“Every six months they come out and they go through and they’ll all find something. No matter what you do to try and improve, every time they come around you can never pass an audit,” Mr Gimmill said.
