Billabong Recycling says Return and Earn expansion would double income

Consultation is now open on the scheme's expansion, which would include wine and spirits in glass bottles, cordials and juice concentrate and larger containers of flavoured milk, fruit and vegetable juice, cask wine and sachets up to 3 litres.

Plain milk containers and health tonics would continue to be excluded from the scheme.

Billabong Recycling managing director Bruce Forbes said including the extra containers would "easily double" the current financial return of smaller plastic bottles and aluminium cans.

"It's just so good for us, but it's also so good for the community because there's so many bottles and different beverages that they can't recycle," he said.

The expansion could see an additional 400 million bottles recycled each year, including 233 million glass bottles.

Mr Forbes said the expansion would "most likely" result in the business employing more staff, including people with disabilities, adding to the already high percentage of staff with disabilities employed at hub.

"I love seeing people that are not normally in the main job stream - they get rejected because they've got some sort of disability - I love that we've got so many people and they basically just flower when they get in here and they're cared for they're understood," he said.

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Mr Forbes said it was satisfying to see the huge positive environmental impact the recycling centre was having too.

"I actually have a spreadsheet that I can calculate how many tonnes of carbon we can reduce," he said.

"Now since we started our business (in January 2021) we've actually off set the carbon footprint of 40 people for a year."

Mr Forbes estimated it would take the NSW Government at least 12 months before Border residents could recycle the new drink containers through the scheme.

In NSW 80 per cent of adults have used the scheme, which has more than 620 return points across the state.

Minister for Environment James Griffin said since Return and Earn was introduced in 2017 drink container litter had reduced by 52 per cent.

"The scheme expansion would boost recycling rates, reduce landfill, and supercharge our push towards a circular economy in NSW," he said.

"Expanding Return and Earn is a win for the environment, a win for communities and a win for businesses."

The Victorian Government's container deposit scheme is due to be rolled out in 2023 at 10 cents per can or bottle.

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