Repak is established under legislation but is also not a Government body. It is a member organisation, which is not for profit and exists to promote recycling and manage packaging compliance. Repak was contracted by Deposit Return Ireland, trading as Re-turn, to manage the operations of the DRS scheme.
I presume all machines will be internet connected so updates are not a problem.
It's about time producers of waste were required to take responsibility for what they put on the market.
Producers have to upload their new products with barcodes 6 weeks before launching in the market, and will continue to supply their own barcodes as they do now. Re-Turn does not supply the barcodes. Producers have been uploading data since August in preparation for this.
The administrative burden on small businesses is large though, I agree with you there! So much reporting to be done.
Will the deposit return points be 24hrs or same as the shop opening hours?
House parties will be changed forever, the clean-up will become a whole lot easier as people will be dragging home their empties.
I wonder will the smart party goers switch to glass bottles ?
Depends which will be cheaper. €/ml the partygoer's kpi
They will have to balance the inconvenience of trying to shepherd their cans all night and get them home later with the price of bottles.
At 15c per can which they will almost certainly lose the glass bottles might look attractive.
Also I have noticed that since MUP when beer is on offer there is often no price difference between bottles and cans which would make the bottles an outright winner.
The host may just have to charge an entrance fee for those bringing bottles as more inconvenient to dispose of and no chance of earning a deposit on return😂
The cans as a sort of payment for the clean up ? 🙂
Partygoers who crush cans barred for life😂
I wonder will there be an expiry date on the vouchers from the return machine?
Good question.
I haven't heard that there will be one.
Not sure but thermal printer paper doesn't last that long anyway...
Reading through the posts makes me glad I don't buy bottled water, minerals in bottles or cans and will continue to put the very rare empty squash bottle in my recycling.
I would have serious doubt that the hoped for benefit will be achieved.
A way to increase rates would be to introduce huge fines for not recycling, and increase general littering fines which are laughable, and maybe consider actually enforcing them. This scheme is little different to a fine, you just pay the fine in advance and once you prove your innocence the fine is refunded. Of course many would have an issue with that but personally I would welcome it instead of this idea, which will have a lot of unintended consequences and stuff they are not openly declaring, e.g. the carbon footprint of making and maintaining these machines. Fines would ideally be a based on a % of your income, like other countries do for speeding tickets (and I imagine other things).
The 2 big issues with your plan, which isn't a bad one from a recycling point of view, is that it relies on enforcement and products don't get separated.
In an instance of your example where somebody gets fined and then challenges the fine it could in theory go in front of a judge and that winds up being very costly for all involved.
The current system allows you the freedom to dispose of your can or bottle whichever way you choose to, be it general waste, recycling or RVM you don't get fined unless you litter (if littering fines get enforced)
Why can't the cans and bottles be crushed?
Because the RVM has to be able to verify that it is a deposit paid item before it will pay back on it.
AA Way to increase recycling rates wold be if this new RVM scheme did not require the new logo on recycleables and if they was willing to accept all cans/bottles as eligible, even from before feb 1st. they're too greedy. at best the consumer breaks even. no profit to be made from this scheme from the consumers side of things unless they redeem the deposit on bottles/cans they did not buy
You want to get back deposits you didn't pay?
It's not the worst idea as a way of kick-starting the scheme, even if only for a week or two.
It's the way a lot (the majority?) of new products are marketed - selling at a hugely below cost price for a short introductory period. I do understand that this is 'different', it's not a product as such, and they don't want to add to the start-up costs. But even something like 15p deposit, 20p on return for the first month (on logo-ed items) could help get it off to a positive start.
Less than 1/3rd of shops will offer a refund. What an absolute joke of a scheme. Whoever signed off on this should be sacked immediately. I give it six months and a sizeable chunk of taxpayers money before it goes the way of the e-voting machines.
This is how these schemes operate everywhere
Indo making a front page headline out of something known since day one and always planned for
Has anyone noticed the logos on soft drinks, bottled water yet?
Does that mean I should be setting them aside to claim back the deposits when the machines are operational?
Might be a way to snaffle up some cents before the scheme kicks in and I to pay the deposits when purchasing.
It's a rather important point for end users, that the majority of retailers won't be taking them back, significantly affecting the inconvenience to those users. Whatever you mean by "Planned for" or not, it clearly shows the convenience of end users was not a priority in the scheme or "planned for".
Some beer cans, nothing else yet for me
Does it not mean that if you see can or bottle on the shelf today that the retailer would have paid the deposit to the wholesaler ?
I saw the picture earlier in the thread of a craft beer can with logo but I suspect that was an outlier.
Officially they shouldn't be out, stuff right now may have had it paid, but the can i got in August certainly didn't!
If you were to redeem that can when feb 1st comes, would it be considered fraud?
I suppose they might be in stock rooms but unless someone makes a mistake they won't go on the shelves until Feb 1.
It would be costing the shop owner money.
By the way off topic, if anyone wants to save real money Lidl are clearing some non logo craft beers at MUP.
It's a win win, you get beer at a bargain price and you can throw the empties in the recycle bin.
