Bought some gas bottles from Bunning’s and other merchants. Now I don’t need them anymore.
Nobody wants to take them back, I paid over $80 for the bottle and the gas. the price of refill or swap is around $30 to $35.
Hence the price of the bottle is$50. Now you can never get your money back on the bottle…Straight to landfill according to a Bunning’s employee or “just bring it back and leave it here”.
It is outrageous that
you can’t get your money on a bottle that you purchased .
waste and landfill.
the company takes it back re-uses it and sells it again?
is this only a loan or a full purchase?
It really needs to be clear at the time of purchase or is there something that escapes me?
Any thoughts?
Thanks
What is the game in this transaction ….if there is one of course.
You own the bottle when you swap. You initially have to buy a bottle to contain the gas, and the requirements of the swap are that the bottle needs to be in date for pressure testing and in good condition. If you decide to get the bottle filled elsewhere, you can do so. If you keep the bottle long term, then when it gets near its pressure test date it needs to be re-tested and if successful it will be re-stamped for the next period. If it fails, it must be disposed of. Disposal can be done at a scrap metal merchant or a recycling area of a dump.
You can sell a compliant bottle to another person, though most people are hesitant to purchase gas bottles secondhand from a private sale. If Bunnings or another are willing to take the bottle, they take the risk of whether it is useable or will become scrap, that is of course the disposers choice of whether they are happy for that to occur.
Because you own the gas bottle. Even the Swap and Gas bottle you own. The system works by you buying your own gas bottle which you can exchange for another filled gas bottle when it runs out. As it is exchanged, you then own the exchanged gas bottle… and continues indefinitely until one doesn’t need a bottle anymore.
Like any product, one can’t take something they own back to the retailer for a refund when they no longer need the product.
There is often a mistaken belief the gas bottles as part of the exchange program are owned by the business running the program. This isn’t correct as the consumer owns the gas bottle. It is worth noting that the exchange business is responsible for maintaining any gas bottle which they fill, to ensure that it complies with the relevant safety standards for gas bottles. The costs of maintenance costs are covered in the price to exchange an empty gas bottle with a filled gas bottle.
For information about the exchange program what to do with bottle longer needed, see:
If you don’t want them, give them to a friend, family member or even sell them online through Gumtree/Marketplace. The latter is how many get rid of products they don’t want.
If these don’t work out, drop off the bottle to an exchange site and let them reuse and maintain them into the future. Far better than them becoming waste.
We found out however the program works when moving to Tassie. Gas bottles couldn’t be removed by removalists…but we could hand the bottle to Elgas to obtained a certificate saying we own a gas bottle. On arrival in Tasmania, we took the certificate to Elgas and obtained a exchange bottle - we had to pay for the gas though.
As an aside: Many consumers have a home serviced with LPG bottles. Typically 45kg with a home delivery exchange service. The bottles are most often on a rental and not owned. Depending on ones supplier the smaller 8.5/9kg bottle/s can be added to the account for an annual service fee per bottle. Alternately as a swap service if one owns a bottle/s. Convenient if one does not have easy access to a swap or refill site.
Not really relevant for this story of LPG bottles but I am mentioning it for interest and completeness.
When you buy argon gas from Bunnings, you pay a fully refundable deposit of $200 on their smallest sized bottle - what they call a “D” sized bottle which is much taller and slimmer than a domestic LPG bottle. This is what the Bunnings website says….
“Never pay rent again. Purchase Argon gas including a cylinder deposit and when you are finished with your gas cylinder return it for a cylinder refund. Gas comes in a cylinder, and a fully refundable $200 deposit is required to be paid at time of purchase.”
Argon is a gas used in welding. A “D” sized bottle holds 2.1 cubic metres. The standard LPG bottle holds 8.5 kg of LPG. I have just asked ChatGPT to calculate what that would equate to in cubic metres and the answer was 4.32 cubic metres. I suppose that this is right although experience tells me that ChatGPT often gets things wrong.
An interesting comparison. To consider that the type of gas cylinder used for welding and other industrial gases holds contents at a much higher pressure than the domestic LPG bottles. The Bunnings “D” sized bottle weighs approximately 17kg when full.
Standard Industrial “D” sized bottle of Argon based welding gas: test pressure 300bar or 4,350psi. The contents are stored in a gaseous state. This compares to LPG which requires less compression (higher boiling point) and can be held in a liquid state in a lighter and less expensive pressure vessel.
LPG Domestic bottles: test pressure 33bar or 480psi
AI remains a work in progress. Taking a question very literally - in one instance a strength and for others possibly a flaw?
Not to put AI down, or suggest AI such as ChatGPT is smarter than the average Cyborg/robot.
Suggest Chat GPT may have failed to ask for more information to fully understand the purpose and context of the problem the question related to. One could enquire as to how big a rocket one might need to take one person to the moon? Should AI assume you meant a return journey or a one way trip? Should AI realise that a successful landing on the moon if that is what you intend needs a means of landing and likely a crew of more than one. Although a one way trip with a hard landing may be the default AI has provided the answer to.
A useful lesson in robotic logic as imagined. Has anything really changed?
