Funding the Behaviour
Change Experiment
The Behaviour Change Experiment — powered by the 10c Recycling Games — is a fully costed, nationally scalable behaviour change initiative. The funding model is straightforward: the money already exists inside the CDS system. It belongs to Australian consumers. Every CDS Act defines its intended purpose as providing a financial incentive for consumers to return containers — QLD WRR Act 2011 s99I states the scheme "encourages consumers to collect empty beverage containers for recycling by providing for refund amounts"; TAS CRS Act 2022 s3(d) states the object is "to provide a financial incentive for consumers to return empty eligible containers for recycling." According to the Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry (Oct 2025), unclaimed consumer deposits are not being fully directed toward that purpose — and that needs to change.
Phase One — EOI
Phase one draws $100 million to run a large-scale national media and social campaign — assessing public uptake and measuring real behaviour change intent.
$50M
Into prize pools
Driving behaviour — getting Australians to engage, participate, and opt in. A $50M prize pool with free entry — the reach and results will speak for themselves.
$50M
Into advertising
National campaign — TV, digital, social, and out-of-home — to drive awareness and measure public intent to participate at scale.
Once we have the data from the EOI, we scale.
Note: Prize pool amounts and draw formats are indicative. No draw is currently active or open for entry. All prize structures will be finalised and all required state and territory trade promotion lottery permits obtained prior to any draw promotion or entry period opening.
Phase Two — Full Rollout
A further $200 million funds the full national rollout — technology, prizes, advertising, operations, and a contingency buffer.
$100M
National prize pool at launch
Front-loaded into a national prize pool the moment the Games go live — Mega Draw events, weekly and monthly draws, and instant win games.
$80M
Mass awareness campaign
A second national advertising campaign when the Games go live — sustaining momentum and recruiting players across all states and territories.
$20M
Platform, operations & buffer
World-class platform development, technology infrastructure, coordinator integrations, regulatory compliance, operations, and contingency reserve.
Ministers: Act Now.
Unclaimed Consumer Refunds
Belong to Behaviour Change.
Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed container refunds sit inside Australia's CDS systems. This is not scheme money. This is not government money. This is consumer money — paid at the point of purchase by everyday Australians — and it is not being returned to them.
Instead, according to findings of the Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry, unclaimed deposits have been used to offset scheme operational costs — reducing the fees charged to beverage manufacturers. The consumer funded the scheme. The consumer never saw the refund. And the targets the scheme was legislated to meet remain unachievable.
The Position
The Behaviour Change Experiment — the 10c Recycling Games — is the only nationally scalable, evidence-based behaviour change solution capable of closing the gap to the 85% target. The $300M required to launch and sustain it exists inside the system already. The Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry found this governance gap — unclaimed consumer deposits accumulating without a mandated spend policy. The right policy response is to redirect these reserves toward the consumer-facing behaviour change programs that will actually close the gap to 85%.
$400M+
in unclaimed CDS refunds annually — sitting idle or misdirected
1 of 8
Australian schemes have reached the legislated 85% target
Consumer-funded
Every cent of the $300M already exists — no new government spending required
The Challenge to Every State & Territory Minister
The infrastructure exists. The legislation mandates the targets. The consumer has already paid. The only missing piece is the political will to direct unclaimed consumer refunds toward the solution that will actually work — the Behaviour Change Experiment, powered by the 10c Recycling Games. We are calling on every State and Territory Environment Minister to step up, approve the reallocation, and finally deliver the environmental outcomes Australians were promised.
7 of 8
Australian schemes below the 85% target
65–75%
The plateau every mature scheme hits — and can't break through
~4B
Containers not returned each year that should be
Every Australian CDS coordinator has attempted to solve the return rate gap with infrastructure investment, awareness campaigns, and refund point expansion. None have broken through 85%. The cross-jurisdictional evidence is unambiguous: the barrier is behavioural, not logistical. Infrastructure exists. Awareness exists. What is missing is a compelling, repeatable, socially engaging reason to return containers every time.
How the Money Actually Flows
This is not a grant-dependent model. The ongoing delivery of the 10c Recycling Games is funded in real time by the containers players return. Here is exactly how it works — step by step.
Player Returns Containers
A player takes their eligible beverage containers to any participating CDS refund point — a reverse vending machine, collection depot, or drop-and-go facility — and selects the 10c Recycling Games as their refund pathway.
State Coordinator Processes the Return
The refund point processes the return under the existing state CDS framework. The 10c refund value per container is captured and aggregated, as it would be for any other refund destination — charity, direct payment, or points system.
Funds Flow to Gamified Technologies
The state coordinator directs the refund value assigned to the 10c Recycling Games pathway to Gamified Technologies. This is real, auditable revenue — not a grant or subsidy. It is directly generated by returning containers.
Funds Power the Initiative
Gamified Technologies allocates incoming funds across three purposes: building and distributing the prize pool (draws and instant win games), funding charitable and philanthropic commitments, and covering the operational costs of running the initiative.
Participation Drives More Participation
As more players return containers through the Games pathway, the prize pool grows, the charity pool grows, and the draw odds become more attractive — creating a self-reinforcing incentive loop that compounds participation over time.
The Incentive Loop That Changes Behaviour
The points and rewards system is not a simple loyalty mechanic. It is a precision-designed behaviour change engine informed by decades of applied behavioural science. Here is what makes it work.
10 points
earned per eligible container returned
Immediate, visible reward for every single action — reinforcing the return habit at the moment it occurs.
100 points
per 10 containers
Creates a natural accumulation target. Players become aware of their balance and motivated to reach milestones.
1 mega draw entry
per 10 eligible containers
Variable-ratio reward schedule — the most powerful behaviour-reinforcement mechanism in applied psychology. Every 10 returns is a new chance at a life-changing prize.
Instant win games
playable with accumulated points
Provides immediate gratification between draw entries, sustaining engagement and return frequency between major draw events.
Why This Works When Traditional Incentives Don't
Variable reward schedules — the same mechanism that powers the most engaging experiences in consumer psychology — create anticipation and repeat behaviour far more effectively than fixed rewards.
Immediate feedback — seeing your points balance increase in real time after each return creates a neurological reward signal that fixed 10c payments do not generate.
Social and community dimension — leaderboards, team challenges, and charity alignment transform an individual action into a shared identity, which behavioural research consistently shows drives persistence.
The Public Benefit Case
The 10c Recycling Games generates measurable public value across four distinct dimensions. Each is directly tied to participation and scales with it.
Environmental Impact
- Every percentage point increase in national return rates diverts billions of additional containers from landfill and the environment
- At scale, the 10c Recycling Games could add 3–5 billion returned containers annually beyond current trajectory
- Behaviour change at this scale meaningfully accelerates Australia's progress toward a circular economy
- Reduces the environmental cost of virgin material extraction by keeping aluminium, glass and plastic in productive reuse cycles
- Supports Australia's National Plastics Plan targets and state-level waste reduction frameworks
Social Impact
- Creates a genuinely accessible participation mechanism for all Australians regardless of income, geography or demographics
- Embeds recycling as a community activity rather than an individual obligation — shifting social norms at scale
- Prize pools and instant win mechanics deliver real economic value back to participating households
- In the current cost-of-living environment, a meaningful 10c reward for an everyday action resonates strongly with household budgets
- Builds community identity around environmental participation — the antithesis of guilt-based sustainability messaging
Philanthropic Outcomes
- A portion of every Games pathway return is allocated to a rotating charitable beneficiary
- Players can choose to direct their points toward their preferred cause rather than prize entries
- Generates a sustainable, scalable revenue stream for community organisations and charities
- Provides a credible national platform for cause-related fundraising tied to measurable environmental action
- Creates authentic community investment that goes beyond traditional corporate social responsibility
Economic Stimulation
- Increased container returns generate additional revenue for CDS coordinators and refund point operators
- Prize pool distribution returns economic value directly into local communities
- At $100M+ deployment scale, the Games create meaningful employment in technology, logistics, and community engagement
- Higher return rates reduce the cost per unit recovered — improving scheme economics for all participants
- The self-funding model means government investment is leveraged, not consumed — every dollar unlocks multiples in container-return-generated revenue
Aligned with Government Priorities
The 10c Recycling Games does not ask government to fund something outside its mandate. It asks government to co-invest in the most direct possible solution to a policy target it has already legislated.
National CDS Performance Target
Every Australian CDS is legislated to achieve an 85% return rate. Seven of eight schemes are below this threshold. The 10c Recycling Games is designed specifically to close that gap through population-scale behaviour change — the most direct possible alignment with existing government policy objectives.
Behaviour Change Investment
State governments and the federal environment department have consistently identified behaviour change as the missing lever in CDS performance. WARRRL's own 2025–2027 Strategic Plan explicitly names 'embed behaviour science principles' as a key priority. This initiative answers that call with a proven, scalable mechanism.
Cost of Living and Household Economics
The current economic environment creates a rare alignment between environmental policy and household financial incentives. Australians facing cost-of-living pressure are more receptive to meaningful reward mechanisms than at any point in the past decade. This initiative turns an everyday action into a tangible household benefit.
Public Reporting and Accountability
All programme metrics — containers returned, funds distributed, prize pool status, charitable allocations — are reported transparently in real time. Government partners receive structured quarterly reporting aligned with their own accountability frameworks.
Circular Economy and Waste Strategy Alignment
The 10c Recycling Games directly supports Australia's National Waste Policy Action Plan, state-based circular economy strategies, and the collective ambition to move from linear to circular material flows in the beverage sector.
Community Wellbeing Outcomes
The philanthropic dimension of the Games creates measurable social value in addition to environmental outcomes, supporting government objectives around community investment, charitable sector growth, and social cohesion.
Why Gamified Technologies
Government and institutional partners need to be confident in the organisation they back. Here is why Gamified Technologies is the right custodian of this initiative.
Mission-Led from the Ground Up
Gamified Technologies was established with a single purpose: to demonstrate that behaviour change at population scale is achievable through the right incentive architecture. Every design decision — the points system, the draw mechanics, the charitable pathways — is built around that mission.
Proprietary Behaviour Change Technology
The Games platform combines real-time points accumulation, variable-ratio reward schedules, social proof mechanics, and charitable giving options. This is not a simple loyalty programme — it is a purpose-built behaviour change engine informed by decades of applied behavioural science research.
Transparent and Auditable by Design
Every dollar that flows through the system is traceable: from the container return to the coordinator to Gamified Technologies to the prize pool and charity allocation. We support full audit access and public reporting as standard — not as an afterthought.
Designed for Coordinator Compatibility
The 10c Recycling Games requires no changes to existing CDS infrastructure. It operates through existing refund pathways, under existing coordinator authority, within existing legislative frameworks. Integration is a configuration decision, not a system rebuild.
Community Track Record
Before approaching government, we established our credentials in the community. Our history of direct charitable support — across sports clubs, schools, environmental groups and social welfare organisations — demonstrates that we are not a commercial intermediary seeking to extract value from the scheme. We are a mission organisation seeking to amplify it.
Scalable by Design
The platform architecture is built for national scale from day one. The technology platform supports millions of concurrent participants. The fund flow model scales linearly with participation — there is no structural reason it cannot operate across all eight Australian jurisdictions simultaneously.
Questions Government Partners Ask
Answers to the questions we most commonly receive from government bodies and CDS coordinators evaluating this initiative.
Delivery Model & Rollout
Two phases. National from day one. No pilot — we go straight to results.
Phase 1
National EOI
- $50M national prize pool — free entry, open to all Australians
- $50M national advertising campaign — TV, digital, social, out-of-home
- Full national launch across all states and territories simultaneously
- Real-time participation data collected from day one
- Public behaviour change intent measured at population scale
Phase 2
National Scale
- $100M national prize pool at launch — Mega Draw, weekly and monthly draws
- $80M sustained national advertising and community engagement campaign
- $20M platform, operations, coordinator integrations and contingency
- Full CDS coordinator integration across all participating jurisdictions
- Real-time public dashboard — participation, returns, prize pool, charitable impact
Phase 3
Self-Sustaining Operation
- Fully funded by ongoing container returns — no further government investment
- Annual independent audit and public reporting
- Continuous behaviour change innovation
- Expansion of charity and community partnership portfolio
- International model evaluation — New Zealand, UK, EU
Ready to Engage?
Government bodies, CDS coordinators, and institutional partners are invited to open a formal dialogue. We welcome questions, due diligence requests, and co-design conversations.
See also: The Full Player Journey · CDS Performance Audit · The Impact Experiment
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