COEX’s mission is to increase recycling, reduce the number of drink containers littering our environment in Queensland, reduce the amount of rubbish that goes to landfill and provide fundraising opportunities for community groups and not-for-profit organisations who take part in the scheme.

Customers also benefit from refunds for containers generally consumed away from home (such as soft drinks, water bottles, aluminium cans and small flavoured milk).

A 10 cent refund per container is paid for most drink containers between 150ml and three litres.

To see if your containers are eligible, search for them on our look-up system or via our Containers for Change QLD app.

The Containers for Change scheme provides fundraising opportunities for charities, schools, community and sports groups.

Not-for-profit organisations and registered charities can use the scheme to help raise money from refunds. Once registered, groups can:

• encourage Queenslanders to donate the refunds from their containers
• collect eligible containers and return them at a container refund point for 10 cents a container
• partner or register with a local container refund point operator to access container collection infrastructure like cages or bins
• become a container refund point in their own right (subject to discussions with COEX).

On 1 November 2018, COEX established a network of more than 250 container refund points (CRPs) across the state through an open tender process. Current site locations have been dictated by the areas in which operators have indicated they are willing to set up CRPs and come forward.

In areas where demand is high, COEX is working with local business, chambers of commerce, local members of parliament and councils to set up more CRPs. Site numbers will continue to expand over time, with more than 300 sites to be operational by the end of 2019.

CRPs are run by a wide range of organisations to provide sites where customers can return their eligible containers in exchange for a 10 cent refund per container.

Operators of CRPs are responsible for:

• collecting, counting and sorting returned containers
• paying refund amounts to customers
• preparing materials for transport to a processor.

In addition to these day-to-day responsibilities, CRP operators are the face of Containers for Change and are expected to provide high levels of customer service. Customers should have a convenient place to take their containers and the experience should be pleasant.

Logistics providers are responsible for the safe and efficient transportation of eligible containers from container refund points, to a centre for further processing. This is carried out at no charge to the container refund point operators.

If your business or organisation is interested in becoming a logistics provider, please register your interest here.

Processors are responsible for:

• providing container collection infrastructure to container refund point (CRP) operators
• verifying the number of containers received from CRPs, and preparing the collected containers for sale, (eg. by crushing materials into bales for sale to the market)
• managing the transfer of sold materials to the purchasing recycler.

If you’d like more information on processing, or would like to become a purchasing recycler, contact us here. You’ll need to provide your business details (location, email and phone), as well as nominate a contact person we can speak to.

Material recovery facilities (MRFs) sort collected recyclable material, preparing it for recycling. They may use a combination of manual and mechanical separation to recover and separate mixed dry recyclables.

In Queensland, MRFs have been required to enter into a 50/50 profit sharing arrangement with the Queensland councils with whom they have recycling agreements until the end of June 2019.

From July 2019 in order to receive refunds for the containers they process, MRFs and councils must enter into a recovery amount agreement which outlines how refunds will be shared. If no agreement is in place, no repayments will be made.

All processed materials from processors and material recovery facilities are sold through an online auction portal to approved recyclers. Only registered recyclers can buy through the portal.

As COEX is a not-for-profit organisation, any auction returns are reinvested into COEX to fund the running costs of implementing the scheme. These costs include the 10 cent refund at container refund points, as well as the cost of administration and logistics.

COEX uses the Container Exchange Auction Portal to offer materials from the scheme to approved members of a Recycling Panel. Members can bid on auction lots or purchase via ‘Buy now’ direct sale offers. The processed materials bought at auction are reused in the manufacture of a wide range of products.

Materials available for recycling through the scheme include:

• PET (polyethylene terephthalate) a synthetic resin found in soft drink bottles, which can be used to make clothing and textiles, automotive parts, industrial strapping and more
• HDPE (high-density polyethylene) a high-density plastic found in milk bottles and shampoo containers, which can be used to make hard hats
• Aluminium cans are melted into aluminium ingots and used in manufacturing items like new aluminium cans, engine clocks and aeroplane wings
• Glass bottles are either sorted by colour and reprocessed into glass bottles or a glass sand to be used as a building aggregate for road construction, bedding sand and asphalt
• Steel, which can be melted down and reused in construction, transport, appliances and energy production.

As well as many other plastics.