Deposit return scheme (recycling)

Would that be the same county councils that don't enforce dog fouling, or general littering?

https://www.thejournal.ie/dog-fouling-fines-dublin-city-council-6316621-Mar2024/

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Yep in Denmark they have to do this. Probably encourages retailers to keep the machines in good working order as much as possible.

https://danskretursystem.dk/en/about-deposits/questions-about-deposits/

What happens if the reverse vending machine does not work?

Stores must continue to refund the deposits manually if a reverse vending machine is out of service. Contact a store employee.

Another interesting aspect of the Danish scheme is that they are required to transfer a portion of unclaimed deposits to the State rather than keep all the loot.

These comments from people in charge like 'we knew there would be teething problems' bug the **** out of me. Every problem potentially stops someone from getting their own money back. If they knew there would be problems they should have put something in place to negate them as much as possible by insisting on manual returns when a machine was out of order, at least during the bedding in period. They had ages to plan for this sort of thing and those sort of comments show the contempt they have for the general public.

More like a police state every day, except we don't have any police to crack down. The idea that LA staff will be charged with patrolling retailers now to check for compliance and issuing fines is typical of our new leaders. If the same LAs actually had done their work in providing & emptying proper bins, we'd be far better off.

I think it's a bit of both. Machines not quite up to it (yet) and people feeding the wrong stuff or being thick about it.

When dealing with the general public 'thick about it' is not something to be dismissed IMO. It only takes one eejit in a few hundred to ruin things for everyone. Shop lady told me the other day they had a couple of lads just dumping large black bags with rubbish by the side of the machines. Not bottles or recyclables just rubbish. Walked in dumped them there walked out. That didnt mess up the machines but gives an indication of what some people are up to. And I would believe it. There are only very few eejits thankfully but some of those are Olympic grade, so yes I would believe it.

Also I think - and I have nothing to back this up with only my personal experience - 1 in 7 machines down at any given time seems a little generous. My personal experience is more like 60:40 or 50:50.

I used to really like when we could pay less for the drinks and walk out the back door to put the cans and plastic bottles in our recycle bin, Vs paying more, having to store empties somewhere and then bring them to a machine in a shop that might or might not work.

In a recycle bin that you already pay for.

And keep putting your milk cartons in that bin, not in the RVMs.

I've got a 1 litre plastic yoghurt carton here to go in my green bin, but the 200ml fruit shoot my kid just drank has to go back to an RVM for a 15cent rebate.

None of this makes sense.

So first time using the machine. Aldi machine and 14 identical perfect Aldi's own Tonic Water cans (150ml sold as x8 multipack) + one with a big ding in it. 11 cans went through although 5 or 6 needed at least two if not more tries. Damaged one went through first time. Three other identical cans didn't (tried both machines and even gave the cans a polish up). Got my 45p back at the checkout.

Not a stellar start from my point of view.

That's interesting that Aldi lived up to their responsibility and reimbursed the 45 cent.

This needs to become the norm.

I wish the can makers would make the return it logo bigger so it's easier to see if you are picking one up off the street to boost your old age pension😉

"Police state, new leaders, crackdown."

Relax, it's just someone from the council calling to have a chat with a few shopkeepers.

You can probably thank the lobbying power of the dairy industry for that.

Have to agree that I also find the RVMs fairly robust when it comes to dealing with crushed cans/bottles and even 'roadkill' (cans that have been flattened by cars driving over them!). I generally partially crush all plastic containers and cans beforehand now so that I can fit more in a bag, in the confidence that they will be accepted by the RVMs. When it comes to roadkill cans, so long as the barcode is relatively intact, I just bend the flattened can along its length so that it has some height to it to satisfy the RVM acceptance criteria.

went to get some shopping in dunnes & filled my backpack with empty bottles, one machine in dunnes was rejecting every bottles despite having the logo. then had to wait about 10 minutes while another lad put in nearly a whole trollies worth to use the other machine which worked fine. even while waiting the 10 mins i'm wondering wtf do i do if it's rejected again? waste time walking to another supermarket? just leave them there and waste the deposit money? save them for another day and have to buy a bag since my backpack i was gonna use for shopping is still full of empty bottles?

think i might in future just start putting them in the black bin like some other posters here. it's really not worth the effort & nuisance