The new recycling system

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121469821#Comment_121469821

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

I think it is clearly baked in to the plan.

The County Councils have basically absolved themselves from litter collection. Finding a bin now is like playing a version of Where's Wally where they forget to include Wally.

So they are hoping the homeless and poorest will now become free labour in collecting trash.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121469790#Comment_121469790

Your situation must be unusual for rural Ireland - a built up area that companies are in competition for. For many years we had no service here, the local authority washed it's hands of the service and the only private contractor wouldn't do these roads. Eventually another company came in and we were glad of their service as it saved storing rubbish and regular trips to the dump.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121469821#Comment_121469821

Why should we pay twice. Maybe we'll investigate cancelling the recycling collection, adapt to the bottle scheme and just burn or put everything else in rubbish bin.

There are unintended consequences when the powers that be bring in poorly thought out schemes. Is this an anti litter or a recycling scheme? They have muddied the waters.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470119#Comment_121470119

Honestly, if they raise the recycle rate for bottles and cans by 10% (likely much more than that) it will more than cancel out the sh*ts who illegally burn their rubbish because they miss out on a few euro.

Hotblack Desiato

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

Are there 16 of you in the house or something?

Family of four here, standard size black bin, it goes out every second time so that's once every four weeks and usually there's room to spare. How on earth are you generating that much rubbish?

Recycling won't make money now that pretty much the only valuable item, aluminium, will be gone, so bin charges are going to go up as a result of this not down.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470031#Comment_121470031

They will neatly put the rubbish back in the bins after they've rummaged though and picked out the bottles and cans.

Of course they will...

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470195#Comment_121470195

I wouldn't blame them TBH, it will become quite lucrative quite fast.

100 bottles is 25 quid.

100 cans 15 quid.

In terms of scrap and weight that is exponentially high value. Way more valuable than the likes of copper.

I imagine people will start demanding bins they can lock.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470119#Comment_121470119

Not really unusual, one off housing on a road surrounded by farms. 10-15km to 2 towns.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470152#Comment_121470152

2 adults, 2 "kids" (13 and 18), 5 cats, 6 bed house. However we have a lot of clutter accumulated during 2 recent house moves that we never went through so I'm doing 1 black bin every 2 weeks of decluttering. Paying for the extra bin acts as a motivator for me to keep decluttering the boxes that otherwise sit in my office, the large garage etc.

I mean 14 euro for black bin and 0 for recycling bin, is pretty cheap if you ask me, thats what I pay, so if they go up they go up and I'll shop around.

Hotblack Desiato

@Boggles Jaysus, I was thinking about street bins, but yeah winos rummaging through green bins outside your house, nobody needs that.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470195#Comment_121470195

That's one of the many problems. In other countries there's an industry made by folks collecting wasted plastic bottles for the refund. Notably however, we have the requirement that the label be on the bottle to get the money. Other places it's plastic by weight.

Thelonious Monk

I remember on this very site lots of people used to bemoan the fact that we don't do this and why don't the Greens get their sh*t together. Now they bring in the scheme and everyone is unhappy still. Hopefully it leads to all of us reducing our consumption of things we don't really need and ups the rate of recycling.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470315#Comment_121470315

There's absolutely no problem with this as an anti litter strategy. I'm all for it in fact as anti litter.

What's annoying people is how it's set up and that responsible citizens already pay for such recyclable collections.

If the Green circular minister had any cop on here, he'd be insisting that collection companies take the bottles and cans they collect as is and issue refunds to their customers who are paying them. Instruct Greyhound or Panda or whoever to credit their customers who put these containers in their collections. Why not?

MoonMotorway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470315#Comment_121470315

It wouldn't be so bad if you could be charged normally for the stuff at purchase but you will be charged extra. Surely it will only all end up going to the same place anyways so why the extra charges at the checkout? I know it's called a deposit and you can get it back but it's going to be a pain in the f*cking hole. First of all adding another section for recycling within your home and then managing your time to go to a machine. Then what if it's broken when you get there?

Also 25 cent on bottles is too much money.

Thankfully I don't drink coke or 7up so it probably won't effect me too much. I do like bottled water and I can get around it by buying 5L bottles.

It's going to be a pain in the hole though. I bring a reusable bottle with me when I go out but then often it gets empty and theres no where in public to refill and often I find myself buying a bottle of water.

Also there are some drinks that I really think shouldn't be included like the electrolytes drinks like lucozade sport. I know many will probably argue against this by saying to buy a supplement with it. I ran out of the tablets and then I found myself sick one evening. It was a V&D bug. I text into the local community WhatsApp groups to see if anyone was kind enough to help me and go to the shop for two bottles of lucozade sport and I was so grateful. I was ill for a few hours but once I was able to keep something down those drinks helped me. They really shouldn't be taxed more at the till. That's all this charge is, it's an extra tax but it's called a different name.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470810#Comment_121470810

I think what is annoying people, or at least annoying me is the system is being touted as "convenient for everyone".

No one seems to have actual figures (which is bonkers) but I think I can rightly assume that the vast majority of bottles and cans are recycled through waste management companies via the household. Something we have been programmed to do for decades at this stage.

It's a system that works.

Why would any right thinking person completely replace a system that was working.

They have taken something that was ultra convenient and made it into something that is quite the literal opposite.

This seems to be going in under the radar, it's effectively only weeks away from starting.

What consultation was taken? Or is this another better ask for forgiveness than permission scheme?

MoonMotorway

Another incident that I can think of now as well - I needed a colonoscopy procedure before and those lucozade sport drinks were the best thing for the fasting day before the procedure.

They really shouldn't be charging people more for them and call it a deposit.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470848#Comment_121470848

Yes, they've mixed up an anti littering policy with normal recycling. Oisin whatever his name was on radio earlier and clearly saying the motivation behind this was to clean the ditches and beaches of Ireland.

Which is grand but in doing so, he has pissed off the larger majority who haven't been littering and who have been paying for recycling collections.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121467236#Comment_121467236

If the cost of these types of drinks go up, which they are, then I'll be changing my behaviour by not buying them.

I already recycle these and pay for same monthly. That's convenient for me. Bringing these back to shops and faffing around with machines that most likely won't work or be full most of the time doesn't appeal to me so I'll be buying less of these products which is also a positive thing

Furze99

As for the coffee cup thing the same Oisin was banging on about, I was in getting a coffee recently with a keep cup. The coffee was made behind the counter in a disposable cup of ordered size and then poured into my keep cup! Disposable cup to the bin, something to do with food hygiene I guess.

Maybe the green minister should just ban coffee take aways?

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470868#Comment_121470868

Again, how does that work?

If I am a dickhéad that throws his can out the window whilst driving along, I'm not changing that behaviour and driving to the nearest Tesco to redeem a 15 cent voucher.

Has any actual environmentalist who isn't dangerously stupid been asked their opinion on this?

Atlantic Dawn

Why could they not do something like a month in jail for littering a recyclable item of a can or plastic bottle?

Yakov P. Golyadkin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470848#Comment_121470848

https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/cf94c-deposit-return-scheme-consultation-on-potential-models-for-ireland/#

There you go. There was also further consultation in May of 2021.

Yakov P. Golyadkin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470810#Comment_121470810

So Panda and Greyhound will have to hire a team of lads to go around before the lorries get there counting the cans and bottles in each bin then crediting the household? That doesn't sound very workable.

Kermit.de.frog

In reality this is just another Green stealth tax.

Padraig Mor

Another issue with this: who's paying for the infrastructure and admin for this - upthread quantified as possibly many millions? If everyone brings their stuff back all deposits are refunded so nothing 'left over' for the gravy train. One presumes then that the funding comes from those deposits which are not returned - is the scheme in effect set up to increase recycling rates......but not too much? If it's funded directly with taxpayers' money it just seems like another 'jobs for the boys' scheme.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471060#Comment_121471060

One assumes that there will not be full compliance and thus the taxes collected will fund the scheme.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471050#Comment_121471050

We're going to need a lot more of them going forward if we are to tackle the amount of rubbish we consume unnecessarily. The amount of rubbish and packaging Christmas creates gives me existential dread.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471021#Comment_121471021

So they snook it in during covid?

The stake holders advised against it and were ignored citing Belgium but the Belgian figures are unreliable aparently.

It was being introduced whatever the stake holders stated.

So we are basically replacing our recycling system that was proven to work in favour of a system designed to cure litter problems which have not been proven to work or at very least explained how it will cure litter problems. Apart from the homeless will solve it. 🙄

Do we start the tribunal now or just wait until after this expensive folly is so big we can't get rid of it?

AlanG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121470152#Comment_121470152

Totally agree, this will drive up bin charges as the collectors will make a lot less money from aluminimum.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471032#Comment_121471032

Sure, they empty the bin and segregate the bottles and cans, scan & credit.

If the minister was serious about integrating his anti litter scheme with normal recycling, then this is what he should be directing waste companies to do.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121471225#Comment_121471225

Now you're talking - lots more Green taxes! The more the merrier.