Return and Earn recycling scheme refunds pay for Dubbo couple's dream wedding

When Pagan Lickiss (then Hockley) began returning bottles and cans with the launch of Return and Earn in Dubbo in 2017, she never imagined how big a part in her life it would play.

Initially the 10c refunds added up to just a bit of extra play money for Pagan. Fast forward a couple of years, and she and her fiancé Andie found themselves saving for a wedding and wondering what they could raise with Return and Earn.

“Our original goal was $4,500 for photography. A wedding is something you want to remember forever and we wanted the top package, ” said Pagan.

The couple reached out to the wider community, posting on community Facebook pages and building connections with events. Soon they had people saving containers for them, or offering stashes of bottles and cans that they couldn’t be bothered returning themselves.

Pagan had a friend at the local council who kept them up to date with upcoming local events, like football matches, so they could get involved and collect the empties. They also volunteered with their local show society to collect containers.

“We raised over $6,000 in the first year, and we just kept going to see how much we could raise,” said Pagan.

Ultimately, they returned more than 111,000 containers, netting $11,127.50 towards the wedding.

“Return and Earn paid for about a third of our wedding. It allowed us to have a bigger and more lavish wedding than we were originally planning,” she said.

After the wedding, they haven’t stopped. The couple are now saving for renovations and a honeymoon.

“We bought a house in March last year – it was a big year financially. And we’d like to do a tour along the Queensland coast for our honeymoon. We still have 15 people we collect from regularly, we have wheelie bins at their places and they let us know when they’re full and we swing by and swap them over,” explained Pagan.

In total, Pagan said they have raised around $15,220 through Return and Earn.

“It’s nice to be able to do something for the environment too. We hope what we’re doing inspires other people to use Return and Earn to raise some money for something a bit special,” she added.