Local firm SG Recycle rolling out 380 machines for beverage container return scheme

SINGAPORE – About 380 reverse vending machines by home-grown firm SG Recycle are being rolled out in the north and west regions of Singapore, as its CEO urges consumers to be patient when the

Beverage Container Return Scheme begins in April

.

SG Recycle founder and chief executive officer Mervin Ng reminded customers to return only plastic bottles and cans that are affixed with the logo.

“At the beginning, there might be a lot of rejection of the bottles and cans, and the public might get frustrated if they throw in non-labelled containers, but they have to bear with us because of the transition period,” he said to the media at the opening of the firm’s headquarters in Jurong on March 11.

New drink containers bearing the scheme’s deposit mark will gradually enter the market over a few months, and will become widespread only by August and September.

During this period, the beverage and retail industry will be clearing old stock without the deposit mark. This

transition period

, which was initially to last three months, was extended to six months following feedback from the industry.

Mr Ng also added that the cans and bottles should not be crushed or filled with liquid when they are dropped off into the machine. Otherwise, they will be rejected by the machine.

From April 1, customers will pay an additional 10 cents, which is refundable, for bottled and canned drinks that have been labelled with a deposit logo.

The 10 cents

will be refunded to consumers – either via ez-link cards or DBS PayLah!

– once they drop off the used containers at reverse vending machines. Bottles and cans ranging from 150ml to 3 litres in capacity will be covered under the scheme.

So far, SG Recycle has installed about 200 reverse vending machines at HDB void decks in places including Jurong, Choa Chu Kang and Clementi. Each machine can hold around 1,000 containers.

By April, there will be over 1,000 reverse vending machines islandwide, with Norwegian reverse vending machine company TOMRA serving the central and north-east regions, and Swedish company RVM Systems supplying to the east.

At the launch of SG Recycle’s headquarters, the firm and its partner 800 Super also announced that 160 more segregated recycling bins will be deployed in Pasir Ris and Bedok by 2027, following the success of such bins in the Ang Mo Kio-Toa Payoh region.

Compared with Singapore’s ubiquitous blue recycling bins where various recyclables are mixed together and have a contamination rate of 40 per cent, these bins that segregate different types of materials have a lower contamination rate of around 5 per cent.

As contaminated recyclables end up incinerated, the contamination of the blue bins has been a major challenge to Singapore’s household recycling rate, which reached an all-time low of 11 per cent in 2024.

Since 2024, the amount of recyclables collected has also risen 10 times, said Ms Yap Su Chii, operations executive at 800 Super, which manages Singapore’s largest network of segregated recycling bins.

Currently, about 100 tonnes of recyclables – across metal, plastic, paper, glass and clothes – are collected every month.

More than 70 segregated bins – supplied by SG Recycle – have been deployed at the void decks of Bishan, Ang Mo Kio, Serangoon, Jalan Besar and Marine Parade over the past few years.

The aim is to have 93 bins up and running by mid-2026 across those estates.

The recycling system via such bins awards points through the Recycle Right @ 800Super app to residents for depositing these items. The points can be redeemed for FairPrice vouchers.

To prevent contamination, 800 Super tracks users via CCTV cameras attached to the segregated bins, and will send advisories via the app to people who discard e-waste in the bins, for example.

Ms Yap said she sends advisories every day, and has also suspended 10 recalcitrant users from the app.

While segregated bins have the potential to raise Singapore’s recycling rate, they come at a higher cost – up to twice as much to set up compared with the blue bins, noted Ms Yap.

“When we sell the cleaner recyclables, they fetch a higher price. Currently, we are still not breaking even,” she added. 800 Super’s revenue from managing public waste has been sustaining its recycling arm.