Avios via Nectar from reverse vending machines

[AlanC]

I was parked up at Sainsburys Murrayfield in Edinburgh and spied a recycling machine giving 5p or 10 Nectar points per item. I had 2 glass and one plastic bottle in the car and gave it a try. Instant voucher for 15p or 30 Nectar.
Maximum 500 items per deposit. Maximum 5000 nectar points per deposit.
Bags of cans and bottles in the house which will go there instead of the council picking them up.
I’m sure the commited could make a stack of Nectar/Avios very quickly.
Sainsbury’s staff said it’s a trial at the moment.
AlanC

[GimmeMorePoints]

Love this! I’ll start saving my plastic bottles from today!

[Colin MacKinnon]

Wow! Does it take can as well? If the cans are crushed, or the bottles crushes, does it recognise them?

[Colin MacKinnon]

Just looked and it seems Sainsbury take cans – but you get 10p at Lidl in
Hamilton, Edinburgh Granton, Glasgow Yoker and Dundee’s city centre

[tw33ty]

At Lidl, it’s only on bottles they sell in store.

[Wally1976]

I like the sound of this but is it just a Scottish thing? Not seen anything like this in England.

[JH]

A couple of points to note with this …
1. Pick your time of day carefully – you will frequently find people coming in with 2 trolleys full of cans/bottles which it takes at least 30 mins to process
2. The machines are hugely unreliable, and are often out of service for days at a time

[Erico1875]

Used to do this with cans at Tesco years ago. It’s quite a labour intensive way to collect points though

[Erico1875]

In Scotland next year there’s going to be a 20p deposit/tax on plastic bottles.
Possibly retailers are gearing up to handle returns this way

[NorthernLass]

Great ideas. I remember taking pop bottles back to the corner shop when I was little for either 5p or 10p, I can’t recall exactly now! Retailers could go a lot further though by selling more refills – if they can do it for coffee and shower gel it could also be done with drinks, washing liquid and other products.

[tw33ty]

It’s huge in Hamburg, don’t know about the rest of Germany, but it’s 25 cent a bottle and all the big supermarkets have reverse vending machines for them.

[pabenny]

A Tesco store I used to use had one of these machines. It read the barcodes and would only accept items sold by Tesco.

Store was Stretford (Manchester). I think the machine is now gone.

[AlanC]

Took a stash of Christmas and New year bottles and cans to Sainsbury’s and picked up 2350 nectar for 10 minutes work feeding the machine today.
A wee bump up to remind you all.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Finally used one of these machines in Lidl in Berlin earlier this week very simple to use and you can chose to get a voucher for your shop or can donate to charity for the deposit on the bottle.

They only accept bottles for items they sell though.

Shame my nearest big Sainsbury’s doesn’t have one.

[PMG]

tw33ty wrote:

It’s huge in Hamburg, don’t know about the rest of Germany, but it’s 25 cent a bottle and all the big supermarkets have reverse vending machines for them.

A deposit on recyclable bottles (Pfand) has been in place for years in Germany.
There’s a different deposit depending on “one-use” (Einweg) bottles or “multiple use” (Mehrweg) bottles.
One of the things I have always thought would be a good idea in the UK… 🙂

[Alesio]

any links to sites/machines available in London?

[BajiNahid]

AlanC wrote:

Took a stash of Christmas and New year bottles and cans to Sainsbury’s and picked up 2350 nectar for 10 minutes work feeding the machine today.
A wee bump up to remind you all.

I wonder if the other stores in Edinburgh have them? Cameron toll wont but maybe craigleith,longstone possibly straiton i hope!

[xenole]

pabenny wrote:

A Tesco store I used to use had one of these machines. It read the barcodes and would only accept items sold by Tesco.

Store was Stretford (Manchester). I think the machine is now gone.

I used that a couple of times and it gave out a (max?) £1 shopping voucher. Didn’t seem too picky with whose bottles they were.
It was broken a couple of times around the start of Covid, and then they never bothered fixing it again after that.

Plenty in Helsinki etc. that give out vouchers for the attached supermarket.

Not seen any at any Sainsbury store I’ve been to to be honest.
Edinburgh is a bit far out of my way, although if I knew I would be up that way, I would load the car up.