Deposit return scheme (recycling)

there was a lad in Tesco today with a turf bag full of cans. Mice had holes ate all over the fcukin bag and it was dripping all over the floor. This can, bottle saga is the greatest load of sh1te that was ever imagined.

It should be scrapped now and bail them fcukin stupid machines in a recycling yard somewhere.

My tuppenceworth, having not read the 131 pages so far!

1. I never noticed 2 litre plastic bottles spoiling the landscape, littering the streets of Dublin and the suburbs. Perhaps just me not noticing. I'd hold a view that the vast majority of 2 litre bottles have always been thrown in the recycle bin by households, as they aren't "convenience" purchases, they are house purchases. So the whole deposit return scheme for these plastic bottles is a waste of time imo.
2. I DO notice 330ml and 500ml bottles littering the place - and this is likely as it is THESE sizes, the "convenience" purchases, that are dropped on the streets (in the absence of a proper recycling bin solution by DCC etc.) So a scheme to recycle these may have been appropriate.
3. So, this scheme, for the regular 2 litre bottles I purchase in my household, is an absolute pain in the árse and I don't see the point of it - and the fact that the authorities charge a HIGHER deposit for these bottles suggests, to me, that they focussed on size of bottles, rather than considering whether this size was a problem at all.

Yes you can get cash.

DRS is not set up to credit refunds to a card, apple pay or any other system.

It seems quite a few would prefer if it was.

Haven't been following the thread. I've made two trips to return cans/bottles. First one was fine, only issue was one bottle I was charged a deposit for wasn't accepted. No receipt so not much I could do.

Second trip was a pain. Went to Aldi, machine out of order. No problem. Head over to the local SuperValu which has two machines. One out of order but the other working away. Great. 3 bottles in and that stops working... Pain in the arse.

Yep, there were other reasonable alternatives that could have been tried and that would have worked in conjunction with the existing recycling collection. More bins on streets, at scenic areas like beaches and forest carparks should have been the first call. The trouble with that is that it requires work to empty them and the authorities would prefer to just force some other system on the public to make up for their basic shortcomings.

I don't think the current machines could be adapted but maybe someone else knows for sure.

If the option was allowed for in the Re-turn system perhaps newer machines coming on line would accommodate it.

And considering the novelty of it you would expect more people to be trying it at the start.
Until the reality sets in that most of the machines are constantly out of order and your back off home with your bag of cans or paying for another bag since the one you were going to use for your shopping is still full of cans

Another attempt at using these machines yesterday and both screens said 'needs staff attention'. Brought it to the staff attention at the checkout in Aldi to be met by a shrug saying theres nothing she can do.

Absolute waste of my fcuking time and money, how many times do I need to show up with these cans to get back the money Ive already paid?

Aldi and Lidl both have no customer service desk or spare floor staff to deal with queries.

Usually you will only see shelf packers and checkout operators.

The checkout operators have their hands full and the stackers seem slow to help though they can contact supervisors remotely.

The number of bad reports from these shops reflects this.

They get 2.2 cents I think per item redeemed in their RVM… so if it is a retailer taking in a lot of items, there is that benefit.

But that would require the staff, setup etc to keep the machines operational which seems like more hassle for them.

The RVM machines I used before, about 10 years ago, had no screen. Just a couple of red and green lights. Also, no barcode reading. The only error I saw was the red flashing light indicating it is full.

As Ive said before, any time we introduce something new in this country we go with the over engineered version. We know its going to be decades before we introduce anything else so we have to go for the one with all the bells and whistles.

I have been involved in the designing and building of resilient systems in the past. Most people use such systems all the time. Very few ever have a warning on the screen saying "Out of order / Contact a member of staff". If something is not working, it simply switches off, resets all the moving parts to its default position, and then starts up again.

I could build an RVM out of lego that was more resilient than the ones they have decided to go with.

What is the point of the barcode scanning? Within a few months the vast majority of any cans/bottles will have been purchased with a deposit so the barcode is redundant is it not?

And why the need to be kept in shape? Surely a return is a return?

This seems massively over engineered