The new recycling system

MoonMotorway

I am just after hearing of the new recycling system that will be coming into the country in the new year.

I can't believe what I am hearing. It's sounds absolutely ridiculous and just seems like a measure to penalise people who already recycle in their bins.

People will be charged extra at the tills and then you need to bring your recyclable trash back to the shop, to get a token or slight cash back on the recyclables.

What is the goal and the aim of this? Is it to encourage people to recycle more.

This is ridiculous for people who do recycle using their bins and it seems as if its measure to penalise people.

I don't own a car and I live in a rural area and I rely on buses to get me from A to B. I mainly shop online for groceries because it's convient to order online and get them delivered. So I am hardly ever in grocery shops any more. Realistically I am not going to save my trash when I recycle anyways just to carry them on a bus and bring them to the closest recycle centre outside a shop. Then what happens if the machine is broke when you get to the shop?

There has to be some sort of an opt out option available at the tills in shops for people who already recycle at home in their bins.

What is the purpose now of continuing with the recycling bin when the new system is going to penalise you of you don't recycle at the shops?

I have never heard of anything so f*cking rediculous before in my life.

If I wasn't so busy for the next few more weeks I would be making an appointment with my local policitian to get this changed. Hopefully in the new year I will still feel strongly about it and get onto my local representative. There has to be an opt out option at the tills. Simple as.

I didn't see a discussion on this yet.

Threadbans

Anaki r2d2

Atlantic Dawn

Thread here about it...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058316674/deposit-return-scheme-recycling

gipi

The recycling bin takes more than plastic bottles and drinks cans.

There will be no opt out, because each bottle or can will be marked, to allow the machine to read it.

Whether we like it or not, it all starts next year.

A scheme like this has been on the go in Germany for years. Talked about it on Newstalk yesterday. Apparently it works well. So much so that groups of people spend their time going round looking for discarded bottles to bring to the recycling machines. Nothing like a bit of capitalist economics to help the environment. Because altruism isn't going to be a factor for many.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058325912/the-new-recycling-system

There is a thread on it, but I agree also as a rural dweller that this scheme is an ill thought out piece of virtue signalling by the urban greens. We already pay close to €400 annually for alternate waste and recyclable collections. Into the latter go all our aluminium & other tins and plastic bottles etc. We're already paying for this and now this nanny state want us to go to more trouble to do what we already do.

This is an anti litter scheme, not a recycling scheme. But I won't be too surprised if it just leads to more dumping of domestic rubbish in rural areas.

MoonMotorway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121465468#Comment_121465468

I am just after checking my Google maps account and tracking my locations for the year.

My main go to places is work and home. Sometimes I go out.

I do the majority of my shopping online including groceries and aside from work and sometimes some social activities, there's no reason for me to go into the city or local town. A trip into the local town is once every two or three months. My schedule just doesn't allow me weekly trips. I get tired and sick easily too.

This scheme isn't going to take me out more and find the nearest shop with a recycling machine.

I can't imagine collecting bottles and cans for the guts of 2 to 3 months to take back to a shop.

It is a tax on everyone for the people who litter and hitting those who already contribute and help by using recycling bins.

Not only that it was pushed and forced back in 2016 for every homeowner to sign up to a waste collection service. Waste companies were getting rid of their once off refuse bags and I think there was even a threat by councils at one stage for everyone to be able to show how you dispose of rubbish. Either bills from waste companies or receipts from the the dump.

duck.duck.go

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121465468#Comment_121465468

Have your tried cycling a few dozen miles in your cargo bike with a crate of bottles to recycle

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121466726#Comment_121466726

No, why would I do that? There's a glass bottle bank in the church carpark a few miles away.

I don't pay Panda to collect our glass bottles, I do pay them to collect our plastic & tin recyclables.

duck.duck.go

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467173#Comment_121467173

Because that’s the world the Greens want you to live in?

ELM327

This is in place in most other civilised european countries for years. Decades probably in some cases like Germany and the nordics. A non issue.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467197#Comment_121467197

That's fine and would be acceptable here, if the waste companies all reduce their charges appropriately for collecting said recyclables. That is the system that we chose to put in place and that we already pay for. Other countries have different systems.

ELM327

I don't pay for recycling collection. 14E per bin lift - we have 2 black bins so 28E every second week - and 0E per recycling lift. They even take extra bags of recycling left beside the recyling bin for free. (once the bags are see through).

Again, a non issue. Shop around. Recycling collecting makes money for the refuse companies, no one should pay for recycling collection.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467219#Comment_121467219

Big collection costs could well rise if companies can't benefit from taking cans and plastic bottles.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467226#Comment_121467226

Do you seriously think 20c a can or bottle is going to make people change their behaviors? Bags at shops have been taxed for years yet every day people pay the tax to have a bag. I would guess that most folks - myself included - likely won't change their behavior at all.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467286#Comment_121467286

It's literally a few minutes of extra effort, and you can use the resulting voucher to reduce the cost of your weekly shop.

But we don’t have any reason to do “a few minutes extra effort” - other than that we’re now being told that we have to. We are already putting these items into our green bins, which we’ll still have and use.

And don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the voucher will “reduce the cost of your weekly shop”. It’s only your own extra money that you paid last week that you’re getting back. Imagine I stole your wallet on a Tuesday, then made you travel over to my house to collect it on a Friday - you wouldn’t be delighted at having a windfall of extra cash for the weekend, would you?

in fact, with Tesco estimating that the retrofit of the infrastructure will cost them €200,000 per store we (the consumers) will certainly be paying extra for it somewhere along the line.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058325912/the-new-recycling-system

I agree that there are significant obvious but unintended consequences: effectively this is a tax on people who shop online.

One option for people who don’t go to shops themselves would be to sell redeemable items to neighbours who will go to a refund centre. Of to use them as donations to local charities.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467219#Comment_121467219

'Shop Around'!! that's beginning to sound like FG rhetoric for anything.

Round here you can't 'shop around'. There is only one company allocated to the area by the county council. They do bins one week and recyclables the next. There is no choice. You either use this as a householder or burn and dump like others.

wayne040576

We had this in the eighties and earlier with glass bottles (return for deposit). I never understood why they got rid of it. Some of the kids in the area would go around collecting the bottles from people who were too lazy to return them themselves.

Potential-Monke

A can of coke in Germany is also nearly half price compared to here, and now ours will go up again so they can charge us to bring it back, even if we already recycle at home with our bin collection services... As I said in the main thread, this is more likely to make me go healthy and just drink tap water (thankfully grand here, and we have a softener too). It's a tax on the people who already recycle in order to pay for those who don't. Best way to stop people dumping recyclable material? Charge the people who do recycle! Genius.

How's it there was no big hoohah about this when it was at a stage when we could actually stop it? Was it possibly because the actual way it would work wasn't stated at the time? I'm on this site far too long, and I don't remember a bitchy thread about it, and there was sure to be one!

We also only have a single option for bin collection, and the nearest big shop is most likely a 20 minute drive away, seriously doubt the nearby local shops will be big enough for inclusion, and I don't think they'll fork out the retrofit cost either!

MoonMotorway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467286#Comment_121467286

You must live a very sheltered and simple life if you think it's all so simple and people are lazy and that's why they don't want to do this.

WRONG.

It's adding another layer of organisation within the home. You will have your ordinary bin, maybe a compost, you will have a recycling bin for the bins outside that will include cartons and you're tubs and milk bottles and other plastics and paper. Now you will need another container for recyclables to keep plastic bottles and cans intact.

Then you have to organise your time to bring your recyclables to a machine when all along many many people were doing in their recyclable bins.

It's not a case of simply lazy when everyone is different with many different stresses and intensities to work and every day life.

This is now more. First at the tills, because there will be many items going up in price, we still have to pay for bins which will now likely also go up when they can't get any profit from the cans and recyclables that will be removed from them, and now we need to organise another section in our homes for more recycables, and then organise time to take them to a machine to get some money back.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467752#Comment_121467752

Its quite extraordinary the see no evil hear no evil position some people adopt when it comes to slavishly supporting so called green initiatives. Some even to the point of calling people pathetic for having the temerity to point out that this initiative is just another bloody inconvenience a large proportion of the population who already recycle these items without the need for all this expensive palaver. How pathetic am I

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058325912/the-new-recycling-system

I saw your post on the other thread and I was struck by your predicament.

This link is to a discussion on Newstalk yesterday.

It starts about 6 minutes into the programme.

One of the contributors mentions that there are some indications that delivery drivers may collect empties.

This might be helpful in your case.

https://www.goloudplayer.com/episodes/the-hard-shoulder-aHR0cHM6Ly9jZG4ucmFkaW9jbXMubmV0L21lZGlhLzAwMS9hcmNoaXZlLzIzNDg2NC10aGUtaGFyZC1zaG91bGRlci8wNl8xMl8yMDIzLm1wMw%3D%3D

_Kaiser_

It's another con and tax dressed up as "saving de enviornment" to keep Eamon Ryan and his ideologues happy!

I live in a town but don't have the storage facilities for 3 seperate bins (no garden and no secure area for them). I live alone and the charges by the 2/3 companies operating in the area don't make sense for someone like me based on my usage anyway.

So, I bought a 240L bin 2nd hand and I fill it with general and recyclable waste. When it's full the bags go into the boot of the car and up to the local landfill where for about €12 on average (it's priced by overall weight) I can get rid of the lot into the compacting machines. I do this roughly every 5/6 weeks.

Ultimately it all ends up in the same place anyway and I already pay enough in this country for very little return thanks!

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121468983#Comment_121468983

Are you dumping recyclables and general waste altogether in the one bag ?

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121468983#Comment_121468983

I used to do something similar after the only company operating in the area I lived in at the time trebled their prices. There was a bring centre some miles away that took everything, including stuff you wouldn't put in a wheelie bin, there were blue bags you could buy locally for the general waste and then whatever sacks I had to hand, which I could reuse, for the recycling. And I've a composter for everything else. It worked very well and it was cost effective - no service charges or hidden extras, just pay as you use.

This new system seems like madness given so many of us already pay for recycling via our wheelie bins.

It will add additional journeys to peoples routines, as many of us get our weekly shopping delivered, thus increasing our carbon footprint.

The wheelie bin companies will be compensated for the reduced demand for their services - I wonder will my service charge be reduced given that same reduced demand?

And why must the cans and bottles be returned uncrushed? Aside from the added inconvenience of where to store them, surely there will be additional journeys for the trucks collecting all this bulky uncrushed waste, adding yet more to our carbon footprint.

I'm all for a greener environment but this initiative is not a path to it and will only further antagonise those who have a jaundiced view of the Green agenda.

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121469586#Comment_121469586

they are crushed in the machine. uncrushed for the user so qr code can be read.

prunudo

Sorry to jump in here, and maybe I've misunderstood some posts. Is it proposed that we can't put cans or bottles in our recycling bins anymore? Only plastic and cardboard?

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121469626#Comment_121469626

I still think you can, but not only will you still be paying probably more in reality to your waste collection company you will now be effectively paying potentially 100s of euro extra to recycle.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121469626#Comment_121469626

I mean, this is still my plan, cans in the recycling bin as before.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121468209#Comment_121468209

I live rurally and have a choice of at least 3 bin companies. Waste one week and recycling the next. We have 2 waste bins and they usually take a recycling bin on waste day too.

I really don't see my behavior changing as a result of this

gipi

There's nothing to stop you continuing as you do, just be aware that you will lose the deposit paid on any drinks cans or plastic bottles, so in effect, you're paying twice for recycling.

I wonder how many "recycle bin rummagers" will materialise, looking for cans or plastic?!