Yesterday at around 11am, Linkin Thornton, who will turn seven this week, and his father Julian Thornton, headed to the TOMRA recycling centre in Crestmead, with containers to recycle.
The containers the Thornton’s deposited turned out to be the 200 millionth recycled since the centre opened in 2018.
A milestone that no other Containers for Change recycling depot in Logan has achieved.
Linkin and his dad regularly collect containers that they later recycle at depots for the 10-cent refund, which Mr Thornton said he saved for Linkin and Linkin’s siblings’ future bank accounts.
“Linkin loves to come down to the depot with his brother and sister and put the containers into the machines himself,” Mr Thornton said.
“The best part about collecting containers is spending time with the kids, seeing their faces and their smiles, they love being independent and doing it themselves.”
On this recycling trip, Linkin was gifted $200 from the depot for depositing the 200 millionth container.
Linkin said his favourite part of recycling containers was helping the environment and saving the turtles. The pocket money he earns from the activity is simply icing on the cake.
More than 10 billion containers have been recycled through Containers for Change, 1 billion of which were recycled in Logan.
The depot supervisor at TOMRA in Crestmead, Steve Adams, said reaching a milestone of this magnitude was exciting and reflected the success of the program.
“We see thousands of containers come through every day – it’s clear recycling has become second nature for the community,” Mr Adams said.
“We love seeing our regulars come in each week, sharing a smile and knowing they’re getting the most out of the scheme. And we’re not stopping here, 500 million is the next goal.”
The Crestmead recycling centre is the second depot in south-east Queensland, and the third in the state to reach the 200 million container milestone.
Caboolture’s Container Recycling depot reached the milestone earlier this year.
Joe Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for Container Exchange, a non-profit organisation behind Containers for Change who operate recycling depots in Queensland, thanked the local community for their commitment to recycling.
“Reaching 200 million containers returned is a phenomenal achievement that means less waste in landfill, cleaner streets and a stronger circular economy,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
“TOMRA’s recycling centre in Crestmead has become one of the state’s busiest depots, showing just how committed the local community is to recycling.”
