Deposit return scheme (recycling)

Nearly lost the will to live this evening using the one in Aldi.

Had a mix of cans and water bottles all from same multipacks but kept randomly telling me this one not part of the scheme. An absolute lie and load of crap, all had the logo and paid deposit on them all.

Anyway it eventually took them all, after many attempts.

I must have been giving out loud because myself and lady beside ended up chatting about how it was a load of nonsense as we recycled everything anyway in our green bin!

Moral of the story keep trying even if rejecting them if you know they are OK.

I was stuck waiting about ten minutes for the two in front of me today in Aldi. Both had black sacks full to the brim. One seemed to be having a lot of problems with theirs as most of their bottles were crushed so they ended up dumping at least half of them in the reject container. I was next so I hung on, but there was a queue behind me when they eventually finished.

In fairness the machine worked fine for me when I eventually got to it. Pain in the arse compared to the green bin though.

Popped into Lidl for a few things after and both machines were out of order and seen a number of people leaving with bags of cans/bottles.

Wouldn't surprise me if there is a breaking story in the future where some of this recycling is ending up in the incinerator…

Same experience last week. Couple with 2 trolleys with black sacks. He was loading them in, those rejected were fired into the other trolley. Still at it when I finished the shopping-at least 15 minutes they were at it.

Saw another issue with these yesterday.

Went to collect the nieces from a birthday party. I bought a few of the kids some drinks. Fantas cokes etc.

While i was talking to the parents the staff came around grabbing the cans that the kids were not finished drinking. Deposits paid on them all. I told them to leave the cans there that they werent finished yet. I already knew i would never get my deposit back as i wasnt collecting them myself from each child and taking them away with me.

Didnt stop the staff trying it though.

But here is a situation where i paid a deposit on 8 cans and will never see it back myself. Maybe the odd kid will get some back. I suspect most wont. The play center will probably get most of the money i paid though when they collect the cans that were left afterwards.

The whole system is another con on the consumer.

Article in the Sunday Times yesterday.

A couple of things that stood out to me.

1. As of last Thursday, 37.5 million items have been returned. It'd be interesting if they would publish how many items deposits have been paid on and we could see a percentage.
2. An environmental scientist and policy advisor believes the deposit may be too low;

“Fifteen cents hasn’t been enough to get my son motivated to go and pick up rubbish to get that money, which is interesting,” she said.

No mention of whether she'd go picking up rubbish for 15 cents but expects her son to. Do as I say and not as I do. Hardly surprising given her occupation.

3. A service station that could obtain an exemption is thinking of withdrawing from the scheme.

What will motivate someone to return the cans are the availability of machines.

Of course that won't happen and whacking up the fee is the only thing that will happen.

We need to get out of this mindset of "motivating" people by charging them

How often does the bin truck come?

Shine said the 15c refund may not be a big enough incentive for people to return their containers. “Fifteen cents hasn’t been enough to get my son motivated to go and pick up rubbish to get that money, which is interesting,” she said.

What a bizarre comment to make about your son. Of course it's not enough motivation, what can a kid buy for 15c these days? They'd need to pick up 8 or 9 undamaged cans and bring them back to the nearest machine - and hope it's working - just to be able to buy a can of coke which they can probably pick out of their fridge. Also, from a young age we teach kids not to touch stuff that's on the ground - 'put it down, that's dirty'. Now we're expecting kids to hunt around looking for undamaged cans? Does this person leave in the real world?

You are lucky with your 2 bins we have 4, general waste, food bin, recycle bin and now the bottle/can bin, practically my own recycling centre in the corner of the kitchen.

The main issue is with this scheme is that it removes the freedom to shop around. So you have to buy your drinks in the shop where you brought them back too. I use to go to the shop that were doing the best offers, usually of soft drinks and would buy there but now that is not the case because you can use the voucher in the shop were you deposited the bottles or cans. Is it really worth it going in to get the cash. The most that I have got out of the machine is €12.20. Even worse when you are buying a drink on the go, do you bring a bottle back for the 15c?

Where as if they had a system were you bring the bottles back and you can get the money refunded to your account would be better or even if they introduced a return card that you swipe and get credit on it and then that card can be used in any shop and not just were you brought the bottles and cans back to would be better.

You can't return anywhere. You can buy from a cafe but not return to that cafe. Or smaller shops.

Re-turn have never released the number of items on which deposits have been paid. This can only be because they are not great.

They like to mention big numbers like 37.5m containers returned (hoping we will all be somewhere impressed we will not ask for any other data) but 5m containers a day are sold here, 37.5m items is not great.

Until someone can provide solid evidence to the contrary, I contend that the daily rate of items sold with deposit is currently comfortably over 90%. I base this on a number of checks both online and in-store I have done over recent weeks. It's really only odds and ends now that are available without deposit.

It will be 100% from 1 June, I guess re-turn are hoping the daily returns get over 3m a day as a minimum. Daily numbere are running at or maybe a little less than half that now.