New figures show a single "reverse vending machine" in the Woolies car park in Queanbeyan had 8.7 million cans and bottles returned in its first year of operation. At 10¢ refunded per item, that adds up to a total of $870,000 to recyclers in 12 months.
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That translates into an average of about 24,000 cans and bottles returned every day to the one machine.
It's not clear how much of the cash is kept by the zealous army of recyclers or how much they choose to give to charities.
Some Queanbeyan recyclers say their machine is so attractive people are coming over the border from the ACT to recycle in NSW. This, they resent.
One Queanbeyan recycler, Garry Smith, said people from clubs in Canberra were bringing large quantities of eligible cans and bottles over the border. Mr Smith thought this should be illegal.
On the overall recycling performance, an exact comparison with Canberra isn't possible because the schemes are different, but on a rough estimate, the Queanbeyan figure far exceeds that in the ACT.
In NSW, "reverse vending machines" are often in supermarket car parks - that's the case in Queanbeyan with queues to feed cans and bottles in and get back the 10¢ or choose to push a button and donate it to a charity.
In the ACT, recyclers have to go to two big depots or to Salvos stores in Fyshwick, Mitchell, Phillip and Tuggeranong and Vinnies stores in Belconnen, Dickson and Tuggeranong.
According to the organisers of the ACT Container Deposit Scheme, more than 5.795 million containers were returned between its start on June 30 this year and November 18. That adds up to 41,000 a day on average - but across nine drop off points.
Doing the sums, each of the nine Canberra drop off points gets an average of 4500 cans and bottles a day - compared with the 24,000 a day to the Queanbeyan machine.
The organisers of the Canberra scheme say it's "going very well". They point out that it has only been running since June and, as a spokesman put it, "return rates have more than tripled since the scheme began and participation is continuing to grow as more and more Canberra residents get involved". More drop-off points are planned.
It is not known why people in Queanbeyan return so many discarded cans and bottles, including plastic bottles (though not wine bottles, which aren't eligible).
The NSW scheme is very public - you can't miss the crowd of people around the machine when you go to the supermarket. In the ACT, return points in charity stores may be less visible or convenient. The bigger depots there get more of the returns.
The organisers of the NSW scheme say Return and Earn has been a great success in its first 12 months.
"Queanbeyan has contributed to this success with more than 19.8 million containers returned across the region (Queanbeyan, Cooma, Jerrabomberra and Cooma). This includes more than 8.7 million containers to the Queanbeyan reverse vending machine."
What both schemes may have done is draw in more lower income people, expanding recycling from a middle class aspiration. At the Queanbeyan machine, people were relentlessly feeding in cans and bottles to get an extra $15 for Christmas.
In some NSW towns, recycling has become an industry, with kids and older people scouring every nook and cranny for discarded cans and bottles (and so cleaning up parks and verges). Sometimes, they do it to excess with people saying there are thefts from yellow-top council recycling bins.
In parts of Queanbeyan, residents make the same complaint, prompting the council to warn that scavengers who take waste being kept to be recycled by others are engaging in theft.
Older people may remember a time when you could return bottles to a shop and get small change back.
