Deposit return scheme (recycling)

callaway92

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978622#Comment_121978622

My god. Just look at your posts in this thread. Have a good look at them.

Lost the plot.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978731#Comment_121978731

Care to share an example of where I lost the plot?

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978622#Comment_121978622

Well the salaries paid to the top Re-turn staff would qualify under that description to "most of the world".

And it will be a nice little earner for the other staff employed, those providing the machines, trucks etc

And also large retailers if they get enough volume of returns, it will increase their profits.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978848#Comment_121978848

Oh no, you mean people are earning a wage for work done? Who allowed such a monstrosity to happen?

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978848#Comment_121978848

Good money to be made distributing and maintaining the machines, good money. At least there seems to be a few companies competing for the business, but still a lot of needless expenditure.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978908#Comment_121978908

So are people and companies making money from this scheme or not? Because above you seemed to deny it.

That from one post to the next you have to shift the goalposts entirely with added strawmanning "such a monstrosity" is proof positive you've lost the argument.

Ever heard of feather bedding? It's invented inefficient work.

I was already paying for all this to be done through my recycling company green bin collection. They were earning a wage for the work done. This is duplication. Now I will likely have to pay more for refuse collection and have to deal with the hassle of returns myself in order to reclaim my deposits. So should I be entitled to compensation for that? Is is a "monstrosity" that I am not?

A Re-turn scheme doesn't have to be setup to the benefit of the 'rent seekers', retailers etc but that is how our one seems to be. The large size for exemptions. The lack of manual returns. Having to go into a store to spend the voucher or get your cash back. The lack of participation by government recycling centres. The retailers operating an RVM get money on items returned, the consumer does not. Re-turn get the cut of the value of returned items, the consumer does not.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978664#Comment_121978664

are you asking me if id like to be paid for providing raw materials to recycling companies from which they make profits, hell yes id love that, but im a realist and id be happy enough if it was a cost neutral exercise..

however i fully expect recycling companies to recycle every single recyclable item i put into the recycle bin, and if they are not doing that, or making every conceivable effort to do that, including washing soiled items individually, then i am not going to accept that the DRS is going to make any difference at all to our recycling numbers, in fact i predict that the numbers will drop from the 60% we were at before the scheme was introduced.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979013#Comment_121979013

My initial query was to someone who wanted to be paid 5-10c per item; which is many times the materials value.

The money would have to come from somewhere; and the indirect answer after chasing all those paths back is the consumer. So it would still be you getting your own money back.

Other than a few contrarians on here insisting that they're going out of their way to put deposit bearing items in to normal bins (from where they will still end up going to recovery at the bin companies end anyway); there is no mechanism for this scheme to reduce recovery figures; and the contrarians just end up throwing their own money away for nothing.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979031#Comment_121979031

Other than a few contrarians on here insisting that they're going out of their way to put deposit bearing items in to normal bins (from where they will still end up going to recovery at the bin companies end anyway); there is no mechanism for this scheme to reduce recovery figures; and the contrarians just end up throwing their own money away for nothing.

so hang on, you seem to have a good depth of knowledge on this that i do not.

are you saying that public general waste bins are directed to recycling companies for them to sift through to find recyclable material?

nachouser

"The beatings will continue until morale improves" pretty much sums up the nature of the scheme.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979049#Comment_121979049

All general waste streams can be sifted through, yes. Most bin companies do.

They have to pay landfill or incineration levy on anything that can't be recovered; they get various funding streams for recovery from general waste and certain things, metals primarily but also some plastics to a much lesser extent, can be sold off. So they do this to save money.

There's a huge long read article (Irish Times I think, some years back on how Thornton's only send a tiny % of general waste content to landfill/incineration.

But its not a cheap process and the recovered materials are of less value and reusability than if they were provided as dry mixed recycling (which itself is of less value and reusability than separated streams). Its also a disgusting job for the people who do it, the automated sorting machines can only do soc much.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979072#Comment_121979072

If that is done though, will it show up in our collected \ recycling stats?

In terms of meeting EU targets, are we only going to report on official Re-turned items I wonder.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979079#Comment_121979079

Yes. It already does.

The % of stuff that doesn't either doesn't get recovered; or the bin truck goes direct to the incinerator for whatever baffling reason, or never makes it to waste streams at all - bottles that get thrown on the side of the road and stay there, or make it in to the sea via a river or whatever.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979083#Comment_121979083

That begs the question though if our current 60% or whatever declared rate includes items recovered in that way. Because it seems lower than I would have expected if it is.

While a lot of plastic bottles, cans ending up in black bins or public general waste bins, I don't get the sense that much is dumped on side of road.

bog master

What pisses me off, I and many others go to great lengths to clean and put in our recycling bin the plastics thinking we are sending these items to be used again. 70% of our plastics we put into our bins is incinerated not fecking recycled!

Thor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978522#Comment_121978522

My point was that this scheme was rolled out before it was properly available to be adopted. No real trial, no mechanisms to develop and learn from the launch without the ownership being shifted to the pubic to eat the costs of the systems failure.

The 5c-10c incentive would have given the system a good trial tests. You say where does this money from. We do pay taxes already, not difficult to set aside a fund to establish the practice, and then eventually shift to deposit based scheme.

The current launch is typical Ireland. Consumer pays, and is left with a broken system.

Also can you show me info on where the money is going. It's already be stated it will start with covering their own internal costs. Take a look at RTE/HSE and tell me Ireland has track record in doing the right thing.

Archeron

Last Saturday, i actually did go to a supermarket, which i normally dont, as i was picking stuff up for family members. On a bill of almost 200 euro, 7% of the total was scam, sorry, deposit charges. I know from my own personal experience that in order to hope to get even half of this back, i will need to make at least a few trips, at my cost to find a machine that works. I could also have to make numerous more trips in order to actually get my money back if the tills or software isnt working. From an environmental and personal cost point of view, it is simply not worth it. However i will now use my recycling bin at home as i always have and consider this a tax, which it is, but they havent the balls to admit that.

And return know this, hence ignore emails and complaints (ive tried) and just sit there scooping up our money while saying environmental initiatives mumble mumble mumble. Have they given any advice on how they will return peoples money lost during THEIR teething issues? Or like everything else with this, is that the publics problem?

If it wasnt so detrimental to the environment, it would be almost funny how over the course of this thread the same comments keep getting made, just do it with the big shop, maybe you should drink less, you shouldnt be buying water (my water at home is undrinkable).

And somebody asked above whats the response from return if we hammer them on social media. The response is that they delete posts with comments they dont like.

The public dont want this, the shops dont want this, the environment could do without it and the waste companies dont want it. But sure good old Ossian got his photo opp and thats all that matters. That and the free/stolen money.

IsaacWunder

I've tried this twice and each time, the machines were broken. I went to both my local Lidl and Tesco, where each has two machines. While doing my shopping in Lidl, one of the machines got fixed. Brilliant, job done. At Tesco, after I complained, a checkout assistant tried to fix them but said it wasn't possible to get them working. She suggested calling a manager, but since it was 7 o’clock on a Wednesday evening, I just said, “not to worry, it's OK.” I didn't want to waste more of her time, as clearly she not only did not give a hoot, but told me that they had not been trained. I also did not want to waste any more of my time (coming across as a total miser to get my few cent), or the manager’s time, especially when the machines were clearly kaput.

This whole scheme feels a lot like the old Dublin bus receipt system where you couldn’t get change back from the driver. It’s 15c here, 25c there, effectively designed to nibble at our pockets but not enough for anyone to actually do something about it. In computer fraud, it’s called the salami tactic. A small amount from everyone that won’t be noticed, but which adds up to a lot to the ultimate beneficiary. The small sums mean it’s not going to stop anyone from buying a few cans of beer or a bottle of water or Coke while out on an impulse. Obviously, the drinks manufacturers know that too, so that’s why they went along with this naïve scheme.

I can’t understand also why cans are subject to the same levy as bottles. Cans may be recycled infinitely, whereas bottles can probably only be recycled once, and pretty much can only be turned back into another bottle or to something else that can’t be recycled again. Cans should be much cheaper on this deposit scheme to encourage people to use them as they do actually get recycled, and could be turned into pretty much anything that’s metal from cars to literal money. If this scheme is about the environment, cans should not be subjected to this stupid tax and bottles should be twice the rate.

The absurdity peaks with shops in Dublin airport not being exempt. How are we supposed to return a bottle from abroad to Ireland for our 15c if we buy a Coke at WH Smith in the departure lounge? It makes compliance impossible.

As for the DAA, the cute whores have swapped PET for tetra pack cartons to replace the “honesty box” €1 waters to make sure they are not subject to this stupid tax. Unfortunately, these tetra packs are even harder to recycle than PET bottles, if not almost impossible, and they’ve doubled the price to €2, which is adding insult to injury.

The worst part about these tetra packs is they can’t even be reused as water bottles because when the plane cabin pressurises, the bottom bulges out. So, they can’t even stand upright anymore. Instead, they end up sideways on the floor or tray table until you can hand it to the stewardess to dump it. Another one for the landfill.

And while it’s sitting there, sideways, on your tray table, looking like a carton of bad milk that’s about to burst, it strikes you that it is a good metaphor for this entirely stupid scheme.

bog master

Any scheme or programme that depends on the (forced) participants, who wish to not take part and which funds the scheme and salaries is absurd.

Anaki r2d2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979348#Comment_121979348

Slightly off topic, but since Dublin airport has been mentioned a few times on this thread. I think the three way bins in Dublin airport all fall into the same bin bag. Paper waste and recycling. I am 90% sure I seen a fella empty the bin and it was one large bag for all, not three. Not flying for a while but curious if this is true.

DRS machine broken again at my shop

BoardsBottler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978329#Comment_121978329

it would be far much easier to bring our recycling rate up to 90% if they accepted damaged cans. Out of every lets say 20 cans i find discarded on the street, if i'm lucky 3 of them are undamged. And if i'm even more lucky they all have the return logo's on them, rather than 2 being non-return and the occasional one or to being a free returnable deposit. They really want too much control over the whole thing and want to give the orders and call the shops but arr'nt really willing to bend on anything or give anything in return. Recycling is a voluntary activity and they're lucky people even recycle in the first place, now it just seems they're attempting to exploit that for their own political target recycling goal reasons, and bully others into partaking also. Why punish people who already recycle anyway? it has actually put-off alot of people who already recycle. i know some who have been doing it for years do it no longer as this lark was the last straw for them. Some points on here by others reflect this sentiment too. it's basically a case of "ireland govt got caught with their pants down by the EU and now have been told to get in line, got the wind put up them, and trying to force these stats/target goal numbers out of the public by crapping on their own people once again" .

As for what you've wrote: i agree somewhat, harming the enviroment is always the wrong way to protest. Infact i've even made countless posts here saying that its better to protest by harming their pockets aka returning the containers so its less money they get to keep from deposits, which sounds weird on paper and better in theory. But i feel the part your missing about these people "harming eviorment to protest" is the fact that they're not actually protesting against the enviroment or anything enviorment related at all, but rather against the system itself that put all this scheme in place, and against the country overall. Some do it for politically motivated reasons, and some just do it out of backlash from being impedied on and having this scheme forced on them as nothing more than an inconvenience and an extra tax. People are sick of prices always going up, sick of being ripped off and cheated, and sick of having to pay for other peoples green initiatives. Green things and charity should not cost us money, the people who stand for those things should be putting their hand into their own pocket, not footing it to the public.

You're incorrect about the scheme coming into place, many seperated rubbish. We all did our part, or alot of us anyway. The bin men did not do their part, they did not do the seperating or actually recycle anything, thats why we had no numbers to show the EU, the whole scheme is because of ireland not actually ever recycling the plastic waste etc. They just sell our recycling waste and ship it off to other countries for a quick profit. Now EU really put the wind up them, and thus the birth of this DRS scheme. Its not for the enviorment but rather for stats/numbers to show the EU.

For those many years people recycled put their recycleables into the green recycling bins, we were lied to as none of it ever actually got recycled. Thats the important thing to remember. its like an adult version of santa claus. This scheme let many peek behind the curtain and see all the smoke and mirrors. The greens even sent a letter in the door about 2 years back about this, and their solution disgusted me on the letter which was "here's the problem, here's whats happening, and here's how we intend to fix it, we'll just tax it and make money off of it, also vote for us by the way" lark.

Recycling is voluntary, and they're lucky we're even doing it (or have been doing it) in the first place. Now they're just taking it for granted. Also last question in this long essay post: what are the enviromental benefits of this scheme? and do they outweigh the unbenefits?/disbenifits? (for my lack of knowledge on a proper word for it).

BoardsBottler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978126#Comment_121978126

Thats very unfortunate and kind of sad, but also hilarious at the same time. However i do propose a solution. Keep the containers and give them to a very special boat man (funded by return) once a week, and he/she can return those cans to the mainland. i would like to be that boatman even for just one day. or maybe perhaps the boat could have 2 RVM's on board, or a manual quick visual inspection and then he can crush the cans after verfying. idk just some random thoughts. How is waste normally collected from islands? and is recycling even collected?

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979853#Comment_121979853

The shop owner came up with a similar solution, that he could re-pay deposit to customer, then bag items, then Re-turn would fund the transport & refund shop owner. People get groceries direct from mainland shops too, pay deposit etc.

https://www.rte.ie/radio/rnag/clips/22380767/

and where waste goes - for years recyclables are baled and sent to mainland

https://pakmanawards.repak.ie/images/uploads/general/Community_Recycling_Initiative_Award_2019.pdf

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979958#Comment_121979958

That's just being a conventional manual return point surely?

I haven't gone to actually check which they do (manual or RVM), but the Arranmore Co-op is registered as a re-turn point now rather than the shop and all the small cafes/coffee vans/etc having to do it. That island, however, has wheelie bins, bin trucks, and conventional bottle banks already; its basically just like a small village that happens to have a kilometre of sea between it and the next.

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972977#Comment_121972977

There's a line of bottle bins near me and I do use it occasionally (rare I need to) but there's no can option.

I did do a landfill run earlier though… 8 bags of mixed rubbish including one of grass cuttings. 15 quid took care of the lot (it's been less before but I put that down to the weight of the grass cuttings). The grass emptied onto the pile in the corner. The rest into the compactor.

As I live alone I do these runs maybe once every 6-8 weeks. Compared to what I'd spend on bin collections or time-wasting carting bags of empty cans about, it more than pays for itself.

Jinglejangle69

Whats with the plastic wrappers on the bottles nowadays?

Barely stuck onto the bottles that when you bring them to the machine half of them have come off the bottles.

Makes me wonder if it’s deliberate.

thesandeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978771#Comment_121978771

Trying to make us believe that all the supermarkets were going to turn into Dr Quirkeys with the all singing, all dancing machines throwing out the jackpot in 5 cent coins every time we inserted a can is the first one.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121978293#Comment_121978293

This is a very naive and short sighted standpoint.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121980172#Comment_121980172

Well it was just a thought that rather than paying to get rid of €16 worth of cans you might get rid for free.

But I suppose if you are determined to dump the €16 the extra cost is marginal.

Maybe when all cans are deposit paid those bottle bank bins will disappear anyway.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121981439#Comment_121981439

It's the truth though