What an achievement!
A 36-year-old man in Australia has opened up about how he managed to buy a two-bedroom house using money he garnered from recycling bottles and cans.
This is as he deposited them into his local container return scheme.
Damian Gordon of New South Wales (NSW) told his story to Australian publication That’s Life, explaining how he liked to unwind after a shift in his health industry job by walking along the beach.
On these strolls, however, he became disturbed by the amount of rubbish left by people along the coast, as well as the impact litter like this is having on the oceans.
As such, he began collecting the trash on his walks. This was before later signing up as a volunteer for events run by Clean Up Australia, an environmental conservation organisation.
A keen musician, Damian was also one of the organisers of a NSW music festival called Mountain Sounds, which had its inaugural year in 2014.
As he notes, though: “After a few years, I swapped from being a performer to waste manager of the event, leaving the other talented musicians to entertain the crowd while I focused on the clean up.
“With the help of 30 volunteers, we collected drink cans, empty beer tinnies and plastic bottles.”
By the end of Mountain Sounds’ 2017 edition, the team had collected around 40,000 bottles and cans.
Taking them to the local recycling plant, they received a 10-cent refund per item – thus, walking away with $4,000.
“That’s when I came up with a wild idea. I’m going to recycle my way to a house deposit,” Damian recalls.
Helped by his mother, Helen, word of the pair’s quest soon spread.
Damian recounts: “People began contacting me with their upcoming events. ‘I’m getting married in the park. Would you like to tackle the recycling for us?’ one woman asked.
“‘It’s my daughter’s birthday down at the beach at the weekend,’ said another. Before I knew it, my weekends were booked out. I even had locals collecting bottles and donating them to me.”
By December 2017, a container deposit return scheme known as ‘Return and Earn’ was implemented in NSW, which made the recycling process easier.
Damian opened a separate savings account solely for the money he garnered through recycling.
He says he began pocketing upwards of $400 for each monthly trip to the local container deposit.
As his bank account filled up, Damian stepped up his efforts.
He tells That’s Life that whenever he finished work, he would go around the area picking up discarded bottles and cans. Then, on the weekends, he would cash in his collections.
By January 2025, after seven years of saving, Damian had reached $45,000 in “hard-earned recycled cash”. Combined with the rest of his savings, he used this money to put down a deposit on a two-bedroom house.
Even more impressively, Damian’s recycling efforts have also helped fill his new home, as he has furnished it with “treasures” he has discovered on the street.
This includes a fridge, microwave, juicer, as well as a bed frame.
And Damian shows no sign of slowing down his collecting, particularly given his mortgage repayments.
He concludes: “Now I’m paying off my dream home, one bottle at a time.”
