Ah I hate principles that get in the way of an easier life.
i dont know about other people but for me its not a case of shopping in various tesco branches and whether or not i can redeem in each, but rather shopping in various supermarkets (or going to one just to deposit cans/bottles & not wanting to queue up) and it being a even bigger pain than it already is to not simply be able to collect the vouchers up and cash all together at one cashpoint, regardless of which machines i got them from.
Of course you are right.
Many of our public water supplies are far from satisfactory and have been that way for a long time.
Bottled water is essential if the supply in your area is not up to scratch.
In your case it's not a matter of choice.
The only consolation is that the 5 litre containers are exempt from deposit.
Totally agree, worryingly plastic bottle use has increased in Germany and I daresay other cases as well.
That being said, I know that this scheme is going to "force" me into using less plastic bottles and cans simple because of the cost/hassle however it wouldn't have taken a sheme of this nature to do that in the first instance. I think a lot of people will go the same way.
This is not necessarily a bad thing but as I said, that wouldn't need a scheme such as this.
So, back to one of the stats brought up here that we are one of the highest users of PET bottles per capita in the EU.
Surely, at this stage, given our green credentials, well educated population and massive amounts of money thrown into green schemes and research, we would have figured out WHY this is the case and looked at methods to reduce these numbers. Has any of this been done/happened? If not, why the F&&K not before ramming a scam such as this down our throats..........
If the water was safe to drink coming from my taps my plastic use would reduce drastically.
Another one to add to the long list of things the government can’t get right in this country.
There could be something in that.
If you were running a store that was short staffed maybe there would be a temptation to concentrate on checkouts and keep sales up rather than worry about the RVM.
I'm not saying this is happening but it's easy to see how it could.
This is a good point.
The first step on the three Rs is Reduce and that should be the goal.
In the meantime we need to get a system in place that will do the best we can with what is being produced now.
Will that encourage more production ?
Probably yes but only if we allow it to.
It seems clear to me that most posters on this thread are not ready to reduce their consumption of plastic.
They may or may not be representative of the general public.
People seem to have bought into the idea of the convenience of having drinks readily available at all times.
It appears to me that if any attempt was made to reduce that availability the reaction would make this thread look like a tea party.
To be honest for me it's the principle, I'm already paying enough these days for groceries, I don't fancy paying any more.
One thing I noticed this weekend more yesterday is for bank holiday weekend they are getting used a lot so with limited bank holiday staff more likely to have issues with machines. Probably better off waiting a few days after BH to use them
Yas all much be earning shag all if you are arsing about wasting time for 2 quid, effort of that crap, into the green or black bin they go.
This article popped up in my feed. It is critical of the EUs push to DRS, per the headline, it's a false solution. Makes very valid points, a successful DRS perpetuates and grows single use plastic, when what we need are alternatives.
“This system can certainly help improve recycling figures, but it doesn’t target the goal we need to have: drastically reducing our production of plastic.”
Me paying the deposit and not getting it back is a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the detrimental effect it will have on the publics perception towards recycling. We already had a recycling system that was working. Now, using the new system over that one that was working, is punishing the people who were using it. So some people are just going to say "feck it. I dont care any more".
Dont forget the environmental impact of increased vehicles on the road, extra journies etc, and the negative impact on public perception towards recycling, undoing decades of great work and public goodwill.
It truly is convenient for everyone.
they don't always rip it up and throw it away, sometimes they keep it and fold it over, or else they keep the receipt print out from the transaction instead. it could vary on their system. sometimes its just cash in the hand without any sort of print out/proof of the transaction.
i really wish i could clarify more but i'm had many mixed experienced. Sometimes they may even mark the barcode with a pen, but most of the time they just put it inside the till or underneath the tray inside the till. The day i got my €200 the guy called for the manager, the manager examined the receipt for a few seconds, signed some small piece of paper, congratulated me and handed over x4 €50 notes.
i don't believe there is any "checking of records" as the number on the deposit voucher(s) correlates with the deposit transaction, (for time and date purposes) and the other number is just stats. Nothing that can be of any use to the store itself, gobeldygook that re-turn can understand, and then how the system process the payment and info to rebait the transaction so return reiburse the store. Like how national lottery reimburses a newsagent when people cash in scratch card winnings.
Aslong as the barcode scans and is recognised by their system, no further checks are needed. About a week back a new person checked the address on the top of the deposit voucher to make sure it was the same store i'm redeeming it (something which i never seen happen before), but it did'nt feel genuine. Coulda been someone just tryna make it look like they know what they're doing lol.
Also in places like lidl or aldi you don't need to wait for anyone to go get a manager, they have these little headset things and the manager comes out super quick from like a back/side door.
Yoo. I LOVE how the austrailians implemented their scheme. There's even a news video talking about it filmed from day 1 of when it went live. There's quite alot of notable parts i pay heavy attention to when comparing it to our deposit scheme. Some parts i even find entertaining. can't get enough of it. Re-Turn could have learned a thing or two of fairness from how austrailia ran their scheme day 1.
i still stand strong by how they should have allowed non-scheme containers day 1 of the scheme.its a massive difference and if you're gonna FORCE a deposit tax onto people, the least you (they) could do is let some people offset their own costs in preparation of the scheme by depositing stuff they saved up, instead of all the news papers mocking them like they did over hear with the snide "oh you think ur smart/clever/crafty/coy/whatever word they used. you can just throw those in the reject bin or the green bin at home hahaha"
Give it a watch and let me know what you think. it's one of my personal favorite. Also i could make use of that mans truck. he is very dedicated. Even the kid is getting in on the action, and shows this is for all ages of an activity to take part in. After all thats the true spirit, recycling is a voluntary activity. The scheme over here is trying to bully/force/coerce participation and call it mandatory or else lose money. They must remember that they are lucky we are (or was) even recycling to begin with! we did our part, they failed to do theirs, thats what brought this scheme upon us. Their negligence and mismanagement of our recyclables and then being caught out when confronted by the EU over this. Oh yes i almost forgot here's the video of when a deposit return scheme went live day 1 in austrailia. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdf7vjWYvio
I must have about 10 receipts for various stores I got but couldn’t be arsed cashing in when I seen the Qs.
Just don’t have the time to Queue for €1.95.
People are busy enough as it is.
It is rather ironic, that if you do not partake in the returning aspect of this scheme, ReTurn is enriched, deposit paid-not refunded. And according to the Minister, this is how the scheme will be funded.
When there was already a decent system in place, the green bin, outside or behind most peoples homes. This scheme is to entice the people who dont reycle into recycling, while punishing the people who already were.
Took a quick spin this morning, down to a group of 6 holiday cottages. Poked around the recycling bins, 5 of 6 houses had rubbish in bins. A quick cursory look and a good few cans/bottles that were returnable for a deposit.
Had another go at bring plastic bottles back. Again popped one in and machine ground to a halt and shut down. Put the rest in the machine next to it, got voucher without issue. One thing that strikes me is the antiquated sounds coming from the machine as it takes in the bottles and how easy it seems for them to malfunction doing the one basic task they are built for. These are brand new machines so I can imagine they'll only become less reliable as time passes.
Degrading is a strong word but I get why some people would describe the process as that, especially presenting a voucher for a small amount at the till. Regardless I think what is indisputable is that this system is a lot less convenient than dropping plastics into the green bin. I fail to see how those that couldn't be bothered recycling in the green bin will suddenly start washing and returning empties for the sake of getting a few pence back.
This is the whole point I have been making since December. Why aren't all locations served relatively well with bring centres in general? Why HASNT more been done to make it easier for people to recycle items, rather than MORE difficult?
The difference between having to carry glass bottles back with you if the recycle unit is full is at least two fold:
A lot of arguing in bad faith on here. People obviously getting a kick of it.
For now I think everything into the black bin and revisit this thread later in the year.
Clearly it's a personal thing, hence why I asked 'is it just me?' (which it clearly isn't given some of the responses I've seen).
Bringing empty cans, bottles etc. back a few kms to scrape your OWN MONEY back. Walking into a shopping centre (in my case) with a bag full of empties. Like I said, it's personal, but it makes me feel like a bit of a bum doing it.
Alas, it's my money and I want it back...and in my case as it was this weekend, I literally had no other way to get my money back.
???
@callaway92 But what exactly is the degrading part? You're hosting but don't want to be seen to be bringing back stuff? Wear a disguise so you're not recognised 😏 It could be a minor headache with the few extra times your hosting that you have to bring extra stuff back. But I wouldn't care what the general public thought if I had 1 or 1000 cans to recycle. Even if I had extra some weeks, I wouldn't think I was homeless just for a few extra cans or bottles in my bag.
I suppose we all repeat ourselves a bit over the course of a long thread.
Even yourself and those "bags of trash" have been around the block a few times 🙂
I still don't get how Re-turn is personally degrading.
Come on now....
The Dunnes machine has/had an out of date barcode list most likely; rather than a shape issue.
When the machines aren't running on out of date info, anything should work anywhere. There is no method to have something restricted to a specific store.
In Germany, where a lot of these machines are made, there is (glass and toughened reusable PET products have to to back to a store that sells them); so the error messages exist in the software to say that something isn't accepted there when it actually means it doesn't know what the barcode is.
The bottles were valid, I took them to the Supervalu machine to check if they worked there, if not I was going into the store but the machine at the supervalu accepted them without a problem. The machine at Dunnes said that the bottle was not accepted by that machine. So the barcode was valid but not the bottle. So now I have to separate out those bottles from the rest so that they can be brought to a separate machine. Surely all the machines should be accepting all shapes and sizes of bottles? if this is not the case then it is ridiculous and again this should have been independent of stores and there should have been one type of machine that accepts everything located at a bottle bank that gave out vouchers to be used in any shop and not what we have now.
Also ridiculous that some machines only accept certain types of bottles, I bought a 6 pack of 1litre sparkling water in Supervalu, the bottles have the logo on them but when I went to return at the machine in Dunnes that machine wouldn't accept that bottle. The machines should accept all plastic bottles and cans.
That's the fault of Dunnes (or whoever they subcontract to) for not keeping their machines up to date tbf. I would have been speaking to a duty manager there about that particular issue.
