Lidl: 10c for used bottles and cans

zell12

The reverse vending machines will accept both plastic PET drinks bottles and aluminium cans. For every unit deposited a customer will receive a €0.10 voucher in return with a maximum voucher limit of €2.

Currently only Lidl in Glenageary will accept empty cans and bottles

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/0903/1244522-lidls-deposit-return-scheme/

beggars_bush

Was doing this in Belgium 25 years ago.

Buy a crate of beer bottles, return them all and get partial refund

Tails142

Wow that's cool, hope it's a success and gets rolled out everywhere

Markcheese

I heard this being discussed in the uk -

The downside was that a very large chunk of government funding was gonna go towards setting up / running the scheme -

For 2 products that are largely recycled already ....

And economic to do so ..

Atlantic Dawn

I would say in a year I would only discard circa 2.5-3% of my aluminium can or PET bottles, mainly if I wasn't at home and had to put them in a standard bin. Having a levy on them where I would have to bring them all to a shop would be a complete pain in the hole and waste of my time for a problem which simply isn't there. Additionally retail spacing in shops would need to be dedicated to this.

Cash_Q

It would be much better to see glass bottles accepted.

Bazzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117843909#Comment_117843909

Yeah we go to Germany pre covid and my brother in law drops over a crate of beer to the place we rent the first year I had them in the rental car empty asking where the bottle bank was

oh how he laughed!!

whisky_galore

It's an arse if you're miles from a Lidl as I am.

I can see these things being choc a block with bottles and not being cleared out in a timely way as per usual Irish style.

Housefree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845299#Comment_117845299

Not many Irish working in Lidl so it might be ok, in saying that the coffee machines are always out of order

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117845309#Comment_117845309

I very much doubt the people working the store will have anything to do with clearing out or maintaining these machines.

Maybe people wont leave bags of bottles after them at full machines like they do at bins and bottle banks, they'd hate to see someone else profit from their bottles.

whisky_galore

A sting in the tail of the Scottish rollout of these.

"Users are rewarded with shopping vouchers worth 10p for each undamaged empty plastic or glass bottle or aluminium can originally bought in Lidl. "

Del2005

If this kicks off the cost of your recycling bin will increase. Taking some of the most valuable products from the stream will mean paying more to recycle the rest of your waste.

How much of our PET and aluminium wasn't getting recycled that will improve this? The people who correctly disposed of rubbish will continue and the people who didn't still won't.

In Germany years ago I saw the homeless searching bins for bottles to get the deposit back on. It'll start happening here but a lot of Irish people aren't tidy so while the German bins where left tidy I doubt ours will be.

doc22

this will more than likely mean an increase prices of canned and bottled goods and hassle for those of us that already recycle getting deposits back😫

rubadub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117843909#Comment_117843909

I remember getting money for bottles in dunnes in cornelscourt in the 80s, I was only a kid so cannot remember the details.

I bring all my cans to the bottle bans already, I can empty a big bag really quickly. I am guessing this machine will take several seconds for each one. I imagine it will be getting full quickly so you will not only have queues but people having to bring big sacks of stuff back home again. I know there is a limit so people might not bring huge bags just yet, but when this ridiculous scheme comes into law they will.

They should be encouraging reUSE of bottles anyway.

Nyum Nyum

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117846808#Comment_117846808

"It is anticipated that when the national scheme is fully operational a deposit in the region of 20 cents will be added to the cost of all beverages sold in cans and plastic bottles nationwide." 🙄

jbv

Growing up, it was a nice steady income as a kid. Clearing the storage and getting money for it.

Jonesy101

itll cost more in time to wait for it to reverse vend a plastic bottle, wait for each one to be approved and not spat out again, and for a maximum of 2€ voucher ha!

not sure how driving to a lidl to recycle 20 bottles is better for the environment than putting it in your green bin at home

jacool

The key point being missed is here is not recycling, per se, its the littering of the countryside.

My wife, a German, walks through our estate most evenings, and brings a plastic bag and a "picker-upper". She gathers loads of plastic bottles, every day.

In Germany, you are charged 25c extra for these bottles and you get 25c back when you return them. People don't litter there because they know that they are throwing away 25c if they do. It'll be an interesting experiment to see if Irish people might be "tricked" into caring about the environment, because the litter I see shows that they don't currently.

Notch000

i was in Santiago Chile 12 years ago, a very larger beer bottle in a shop was a roughly bout 0.75C and there was a 50C security bottle one each single bottle. Generous tourist used to donate the emptys them to the homeless and everyone was happy. Zero waste.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117852910#Comment_117852910

Kids will pick up the bottles and bring them. Or when you go to Lidl yo do your shopping just bring , don’t go just to bring them.

Muahahaha

I wonder how the machine will accept cans. I use a can crusher at home, will the machines accept cans crushed up? I would use it if it did but if they have to be full size I wouldnt as Im generally on a motorbike and bringing a big bag of empty cans in a backpack would be a pain.

Its still a good idea but agree with the poster above that if it gets rolled out by all the supermarkets then we'll likely see the cost of green bins go up.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117853727#Comment_117853727

In Germany it works by scanning the barcode so that will need you to store all the bottles and cans uncrushed at home taking up a huge amount of space before driving them down uncrushed to be put in the machine to scan. It's creating a whole industry out of nothing. Instead anyone illegally dumping should be subject to huge fines and jail, also publish their names twice yearly like Revenue do for tax defaulters.

daheff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117852996#Comment_117852996

depends on the bottle. Some are 10c some 25c some even 50c!!

but I've noticed on my last few visits that more and more are being issued without a pfand.

Chris_5339762

This has been going on on the continent for so many years now and I've always been bewildered why it doesn't happen here. We are most definitely the outliers.

Quackster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117852996#Comment_117852996

This is indeed the core point of it and why it's such a success in other countries. Effectively deal with the 1% of waste that's currently discarded in high-impact locations and is either very resource-intensive or impossible to clean up afterwards (mountains, beaches, forests etc).

Put a monetary value on it and either people won't chuck it or, if they do, someone else will quickly pick it up.

The plastic bag tax had an immediate and immensely positive impact on littering and this will be the same.

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117854187#Comment_117854187

ah right, I wouldnt be bringing a rake of cans down on a motorbike unless I could crush them first.

If we already have green bins for putting aluminium cans into what is the purpose of these machines? Is it just to drive footfall to the supermarkets so people go in to spend money?

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117855715#Comment_117855715

People leave full camping gear in fields after festivals, go to pubs to pay €6 to drink from a plastic glass at home and you think that a 10c refund will change them.

What will happen is that some people will tip all the bins over to see if they have bottles or cans for the deposit and leave the rest of the rubbish on the ground. Someone who leaves a used nappy in public isn't going to bring bottles home and then to a shop.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117856287#Comment_117856287

I don't know, for LIDL it's just a €1700 a week PR exercise for that branch, not sure what their aim is. For me it would mean me polluting more to make trips to these places to offload items I currently am recycling through the green bins with zero issue.

Pussyhands

This is one of those things that seems revolutionary yet doesn't really have much of a benefit at the end of the day.

I don't think 10c per can is going to get many more people recycling that didn't already recycle.

Pussyhands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117856287#Comment_117856287

It's advertising. Go walk around Lidl and you'll find an endless list of items where there is insane levels of wrapping/plastic.

First thing you see when you walk in the door is wraps and sandwiches packed in plastic containers. Could they not wrap them in paper packaging or some tin foil?

DaCor

Wow, so much complaining in one thread, most of which is due to some of you not even reading the linked article

Some key points from the article

• The machine can process up to 17,000 units a week
• The Government’s compulsory national scheme expected to be in operation by 2023 so all supermarkets will be doing this. There'll be a specific company setup to run this scheme
• The high-tech machine launched by Lidl in Glenageary today will accept empty cans and bottles from any retailer.
• For the duration of the trail the vouchers dispensed are redeemable in Lidl stores only.
• All beverages in plastic or metal cans will increase in price by 20 cents once rolled out nationwide. You get this back when you recycle your waste at these machines
• The requirement to switch to a deposit and return scheme for beverage containers was deemed essential because of new and very demanding EU recycling targets for plastic bottles and aluminium cans as part the so called "circular economy"
• Ireland is to be recycling 77% of all aluminium and plastic beverage containers by 2025, rising to 90 per cent by 2030. For reference Ireland currently manages about 70% recycling for cans, and approx 35% for plastic bottles