Residents recycled a whopping 15.2 million cans and containers at multiple collection points for 10 cents a piece.

“Return and Earn has been a great success – collecting over a billion containers at NSW return points and reducing eligible container litter volume by 44 per cent,” a NSW Environment Protection Authority spokesman said.

“Tamworth has contributed to this success with more than 15.2 million containers returned at the reverse vending machine in 2018.”

Seven Return and Earn machines were rolled out in Tamworth ahead of the country music festival in January, with the first dropped at the Robert Street shopping centre.

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Those who returned bottles and cans had the option of redeeming vouchers for Woolworths and IGA supermarkets.

The highest number of cans returned at any one collection point went to Granville in western Sydney with 9.8 million.

It was closely followed by 8.8 million in Casula.

Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said Return and Earn has been an outstanding success and changed the way people dispose of empty drink containers.

"Before Return and Earn, many drink bottles and cans became litter and only a third were being recycled through yellow lidded bins,” she said.

"Now the trend is reversed, far more are recycled than are littered and the state is a cleaner place.”

In the first year drink containers collected and recycled are up by 69 per cent, with litter down 44 per cent.

At least 26 million drink containers are being processed by Return and Earn machines each week in the state, with 5.6 million the most returned in one day on November 11.

It’s expected the Premier’s target of reducing litter in the state by 40 per cent by 2020 will be met, and then some.

Almost every second person has used the Return and Earn collection points so far, with 300 charity groups benefiting from the scheme.

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