Deposit return scheme (recycling)

The point of this scheme is to bring our recycling rate of cans and bottles up from ~60% to 90%+ nothing more, nothing less. Recycling more helps protect the environment and makes the planet livable into the future. This isn't an opinion, this is fact, backed up by science and a general understanding of how the planet work

Anybody who thinks differently are the delusional ones. Anybody who thinks our govt have an ulterior motive on this scheme is giving our govt too much brain credit in my opinion

The only thing MUP and DRS have in common is that is that neither is a tax.

MUP is straightforward legal robbery by which the Government empowered retailers by statute to take extra money from their customers. Money which they can never recover.

The whole point of DRS is we are supposed to get the money back.

That's why we need to do all we can to make sure we get refunded.

How much money and power do all of the machines use?. How many extra trucks/work hours are needed to collect the recycling vs the greens bin that are still being collected. This negate the benefits and will do for a very long time.

I don't know the answers. Do you have figures to back up your claims that they negate the benefits and will do for a very long time or is that just a baseless claim? If you're so annoyed by it, have you reached out to re-turn to find out?

Important to remember that general waste gets crushed before getting added to landfill and recycling mostly gets crushed after separation so is extra energy being consumed or just energy being moved from one building to another?

More importantly. Why isn't the uncollected money automatically used to reduce costs of recycling at home, or in other areas to increase recycling efforts. It's because its about generating money.

It does. Your point has very little to do with the environment though… Can't wait to hear where you actually think the uncollected money goes

I recycled at home, this is now more steps and more costs for me. More points of failure. Since I recycled everything i could already

Do you not still recycle at home? How is it more steps when you're bringing the containers with you while doing your shopping?

It wont have impact on me. How about for someone that didnt recycle at home. Are they now going to take the extra effort to recycle, for a couple of euro, or just forget about it. Leaving money is someone else's pocket.

Yes, that's the plan anyway, just like they did in other countries where the scheme was introduced. I'm glad you are finally understanding

I worry for you. Genuinely.

Our recycling rate for aluminium cans was already above the dubious figures you are stating.

Over 900 million aluminium drink can are sold in Ireland each year.  In 2019 the recycling and recovery rate was 79% (2019 figures)

https://www.aluproireland.ie/consumers/why-is-recycling-aluminium-so-important/#:~:text=Over%20900%20million%20aluminium%20drink,think%20we%20can%20do%20better!

So by your own declared standard, is that "delusional"?

Again with vague words which mean nothing… "A general understanding of how the planet work" does not necessarily translate to it making sense to recycle items either from an environmental or economic perspective.

So, cans were included not for any environmental reason or recycling target reason but because it was needed to make the economics of the scheme work.

Whether the government had an ulterior motive or not, the scheme has been captured by rent seekers and retailers to the detriment of consumers and the overall functioning of the scheme in my opinion. The increase in the size of exemptions, the consequent lack of manual returns means that item rejection issues are shoved onto the consumer to deal with or accept loss of deposit. We seem to have the largest exemption and in some other countries, if the machine is out of order manual returns must be accepted by the retailers. Why not here? What ulterior motive is in play and by whom?

Similarly the lack of bulk returns at government recycling centres is another failure. But probably the retailers wanted more punters in the door.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.