Metal bin baskets that give residents an easy way to drop off eligible drink containers for recycling without having to find a return point have started appearing on public litter bins across Willoughby, with a trial running from March through to mid-June 2026.
The Return and Earn bin baskets, funded by Exchange for Change, are popping up across six local hubs. While you’ll spot them at the Castlecrag shops, the trial also covers key foot-traffic zones in Artarmon, Willoughby, and Naremburn, as well as various local parks and reserves.
The concept is simple but the effect is meaningful. A key challenge for NSW’s container deposit scheme has been capturing containers consumed out of home, which frequently end up in general waste bins simply because there is no convenient dedicated option nearby. Pilot programmes across NSW have shown that placing a clearly visible, separate collection point exactly where containers are discarded can significantly influence public behaviour.
For Willoughby residents who regularly walk through the suburb’s parks and shopping precincts with a takeaway drink in hand, the bin baskets remove the friction that sends recyclable containers into landfill: no detour, no saving containers for later, just a quick drop into the basket on the way past.
How the Baskets Work
The programme provides baskets, signage and promotional materials to support the collection of eligible drink containers and to reduce contamination in general waste bins in public spaces. Once the baskets fill up, community members, including local groups and charities raising funds through the scheme, collect the containers and take them to a Return and Earn point to claim the 10 cent refund for each eligible item. While anyone can take a few containers to redeem, the program team closely monitors the baskets and tracks collection rates throughout the trial to ensure the cradles do not overflow and the surrounding areas remain clean and orderly.
This community fundraising dimension effectively turns the bin basket into a new kind of fundraising tool, allowing schools, sports clubs and community organisations to collect refunds from containers that would otherwise have been lost to landfill. For any Willoughby community group looking for a low-effort way to raise funds while contributing to local recycling, the bin baskets offer a ready-made opportunity.
Eligible containers include most aluminium, glass, plastic and liquid paperboard drink containers between 150ml and three litres. Wine bottles and milk cartons are not currently included in the scheme, though NSW has announced plans to extend Return and Earn to wine and spirit bottles by mid-2027.
Return and Earn’s Track Record in NSW
Return and Earn launched in December 2017 as NSW’s largest litter reduction initiative and has grown into one of the state’s most successful and trusted recycling programmes. Since its introduction, the total beverage container return rate in NSW rose from 32 per cent in 2017 to 65 per cent within two years, redirecting containers from landfill and litter to recycling. Drink container litter has since reduced by 52 per cent, and over 755,000 tonnes of material have been recycled through the scheme.
Every week, over 40 million drink containers are returned through the network to be recycled into new bottles, cans, cartons and other products. Despite that success, one in three eligible containers still does not make it back to a return point, largely because people consume drinks outside the home and have no convenient way to return the container on the spot. The bin basket programme directly targets that gap.
During the Willoughby trial, the volume of containers collected and the impact on local litter rates will be monitored to assess whether a permanent, wider rollout across the area is viable.
Why This Matters to the Willoughby Community
For Willoughby residents, the bin baskets offer something genuinely useful: a way to do the right thing without going out of your way to do it. The nearest Return and Earn machines in the area are at Chatswood Chase, Willoughby Road and a handful of other fixed points, which are convenient when you are already heading that way but easy to skip when you are simply passing a bin on a park walk.
Instead of your empty Carlton or Coke bottle ending up in the tip, these baskets give it a second life. It’s a dead-easy way to keep 10 cents in the community’s pocket rather than letting it go to waste in a general bin.
The baskets also connect to a broader question about what a community does with the recyclable value embedded in its everyday rubbish. Every container that goes into a general waste bin is a 10-cent refund lost, a small piece of glass or aluminium heading to landfill instead of back into the supply chain. Across a suburb the size of Willoughby, those individual decisions add up to a significant volume of material either recovered or wasted.
Residents who spot the baskets at Castlecrag shops, local parks and reserves are encouraged to use them. Community groups interested in collecting containers from the baskets for fundraising can find more information at returnandearn.org.au or by contacting Exchange for Change directly (1800 813 887).
Published 24-March-2026.
