Australian man buys two-bedroom home with money from local bottle return scheme
An Australian man managed to purchase a two-bedroom house using the money he got from a bottle return scheme.
Damian Gordon, a 36-year-old living in New South Wales, Australia, shared that when he would take long walks on the beach, he would come across tonnes of rubbish lying everywhere.
He found it 'impossible to ignore all the rubbish' that was 'scattered across the shoreline' and that he was 'casually aware' of the area's Return and Earn scheme, RSVP Live reports.
It offered ten cents for every can collected and returned, with glass bottles and plastic containers also accepted.
He told That's Life: 'Returning to the beach as often as I could, I made it my mission to collect the rubbish during my walk.'
Damian would visit the ground of music festivals as 'crowds left mountains of empties behind'.
Along with other volunteers, Damian separated 40,000 recyclable containers from other rubbish following a 2017 festival.
He admitted that he was 'amazed to walk away with a whopping $4,000' after one event. It gave him the idea to start collecting enough recyclable containers for a house deposit. Within three years Damian had saved $20,000.
January 2024 was the seven-year anniversary of Damian's recycling collections, with him earning $45,000 from it. Along with some other savings, he managed to gather enough for a deposit for a two-bedroom home.
He took his recycling efforts one step further and found 'treasures' from curbs to furnish him home. This included a microwave, fridge, a bed frame and even a juicer.
Damian added: 'With mortgage repayments coming hard and fast, I don't plan to stop collecting any time soon. Now I'm paying off my dream home, one bottle at a time.'
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