Deposit return scheme (recycling)

Yeah I got caught at the checkout with that one. Handed it back straight away.

It's crazy. It needs to be clearly listed. The product price and then in large letters the overall price including the extra charge.

Haven't been following the thread, but a few observations on this. Like a lot of people I'd say, I completely ignored this scheme until quite recently. So, I think it will have to run for at least a year before you know what the recycling rate ends up as.

My own experience has been positive. The few times I brought empties, the machines accepted them, gave me a voucher and I used the voucher in the shop (though the shop assistant had to get help to figure it out first).

Two other things I noticed. One a guy on the bus with a huge bag of recycling. Nice to see, but I can imagine the frustration if when he got to the store, the machine wasn't working. That would take the good out of it very quickly.

Second, was watching a small group of teenage boys in the usual teenage boy, black "uniform", dutifully feeding bottles into a machine. Don't want to tar all teenage boys, but it's amazing what a small financial incentive can make people do.

As for the article in the IT today, I don't doubt the experience of the people in it, but it's hard to imagine a harder case, to judge a scheme like this on.

I notice Dunnes have taken the opportunity to rip off the consumer as part of this new process…the 6 x 2L of water was always around the 2.65 mark, it is now over 3 euro plus deposit. I switched to the 5L bottles when the DRS came in but so did a lot of others, have not been able to get 5L of water in Dunnes for a few days now. Everyone wins with the DRS except the consumer.

I've been very ambivalent about the scheme, but turned up yesterday with at least 20 bottles (my first time to use the machine). Most of the bottles were rejected saying it didn't accept the barcode, some of them took several attempts to to be read… It kept spitting out tickets even though I wasn't finished. Ended up with about a euros worth of credit.

Wasn't worth the effort put in. I brought the remaining bottles home and put them in the green bin.

Interesting because most beer cans attract a 15c/can charge, what were you buying that it was attracting a 25c charge?

Some thoughts as this goes on. I've tried another time to use the machines, fitting it in around my normal life, and I'm up to 60-70% of scanned items accepted. I've paid deposits on 100% of them. Shops pocketing the difference.

Also, the total price should be displayed. Display a breakdown if you want but the law here was always the full price should be shown to the customer (so you can't advertise ex VAT prices to a consumer, or put up the price for fuel without duties etc).

Any of my bottles/cans that get rejected go in either the black bin at the shop or the black bin at home. Call it malicious mal-compliance if you will but I'm not putting them in my green bin.

I don't believe it's the shops pocketing the difference. Rather it's the Return quango and the system set up by the state who benefit from the gap between deposits paid and those given back. It's a pretty good business model. I suppose a lot of it gets used up oiling the wheels of the scheme, subsidising machines, collection, expenses, salaries and benefits like pensions & health care and so on.

You're implying illegality then. Report them to the Gardaí, if you can find them.

Could be out on their 30 mins daily roads duty or protecting our politicians from local protestors.

That's how the scheme is funded, deposits charged and not being redeemed.

Today's IT article.

As someone else said earlier in the thread you can't really judge things based on one person's experience but thought a couple of points from the article were worth highlighting.

Interesting to note though that Re-turn are again saying that people who experience difficulty using the scheme should contact them. We know this is bogus from this thread.

If individuals have any challenges in engaging with the scheme, please contact Re-turn. We are eager to assist you and your mother to find solutions to make it work for you both.

In addition I found the following quote from the Re-turn statement at odds with what we've been told the funding model is. I think there needs to be greater clarify on how unclaimed deposits are treated.

Re-turn is a non-profit organisation funded solely by beverage producers and suppliers. While unclaimed deposits will be reinvested into the scheme and used to fund Re-turn initiatives, we highly encourage consumers to return their drinks containers to get their deposit back.

I didn't read about a woman who has to buy all her water? She should buy 5 litre bottles. No deposit on bottles over 3 litres. And it would work out cheaper than the base price of any volume covered by the deposit scheme. I presume this was mentioned in the discussion, as it is so obvious?

I misread his statement. I thought the price went from €16.20 to €18.20 which would be suggestive of 25c deposits. That's my bad!

Interestingly the Guinness nitrosurge can is 558ml so an 8 pack of that would have attracted a €2 deposit

This is the problem, I'm not bothered over 60 cents or something to go and argue. And I love a good argument!

No real alternative remedy comes to mind.

It's something the shops are getting away with because we are too nice 🙂

Likewise. It's amazing how much of my recyclable waste has 'accidentally' ended up in the black bin since this scam was introduced.