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Forums Frequent flyer programs British Airways Club Avios via Nectar from reverse vending machines

  • 31 posts

    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

    93 posts

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

    347 posts

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

    347 posts

    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

    204 posts

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

    224 posts

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

    3 posts

    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

    168 posts

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

    168 posts

    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

    11,234 posts

    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.

    204 posts

    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.

    6 posts

    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.

    31 posts

    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.

    3,319 posts

    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.

    24 posts

    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… 🙂

    31 posts

    any links to sites/machines available in London?

    173 posts

    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!

    31 posts

    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.

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