In the past five years Pickleball ACT has grown from 5 to 900 members, and as the clubexpanded, so too did their waste and need to fundraise. That is why Vice President Michael Thompson had the idea to fundraise through the ACT Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) using the clubs’ bottles, cans and cartons.
“The waste side of things was something that annoyed me a lot when I saw everything going in the big skip out the back,” said Michael.
Now each week, the club’s containers are collected by the ACT CDS mobile collection service. This service means the club receives a 7c refund for every eligible container collected, after a 3c service fee is applied to each container.
The club is putting these refunds towards replacing their broken pickleball balls, which they currently go through quickly.
“It’s actually quite a cost to the club, so if we can get more and more people recycling and putting the proceeds towards the club it actually really helps us out,” said Michael.
The Pickleball ACT committee is now looking at how they can expand their fundraising efforts with the ACT CDS by becoming a donation option on screen at return points, to give their members the opportunity to donate to the club when visiting a return point.
