ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Diane Palmer has a half a carport full of aluminium drinking cans and nowhere to put them.
Close to ten thousand empty Betoota Bitter cans have been painstakingly packed into empty superphosphate bags – then packed once again by the dozen into wool bales.
The 47-year-old and her husband Greg started saving their empties after the New South Wales Government put the “Return & Earn Scheme” into practice last year.
Queensland is set to follow in December.
However, until then, Diane and many other entrepreneurial townsfolk from our great south-west have been taking their cans across the border to Tibooburra or Innaminka – with varying degrees of success.
The practice is very illegal and the trade of illicit drinking containers has already claimed a number of lives on the disputed border with South Australia near Birdsville.
But that hasn’t shaken Mrs Palmer’s resolved to provide her family with some extra money.
One small problem does exist, however.
Most Betootanese people are members of the Tibooburra Discussion Facebook Group, where more recently, nearly all of the discussion going on inside the virtual walls of the group relates to the current operational status of the local ‘Return & Earn’ recycling depot.
And it’s nearly always broken.
Denise took time out of her busy Saturday morning of watching her 10-year-old son play junior rugby league while she shouts obscenities at the 15-year-old referee, to speak to The Advocate about the Tibooburra recycling depot.
“It’s almost always fucked,” she said.
“Tell you something for free, newsboy. December can’t come quit enough. There needs to be a depot in Betoota. I’m sick of running the gauntlet to Innaminka and the Tib. I’m fucking sick of it!”
“The NSW government needs to pull their finger out. I shouldn’t have to check the Facebook group every day to see if it’s working or not. Sort it out!”
Mrs Palmer then slammed the phone down.
More to come.
