Enforcement from County Councils when there's nothing in it for them:
Literally none of that will happen.
They can't or won't even do the simple jobs they are tasked with, the idea that someone from the county council will be rummaging through shelves to find logo less bottles and cans is farcical.
Is the retailer or producer liable?
According to this article, there are fines of €5000 for breach of Return regulations.
"“On June 1, it’s actually illegal to sell a drink which doesn’t have a Re-turn logo,” Mr Smyth said. “The people in charge of enforcing that are the local authorities. It will be their job to go into the shops, looking on the shelves and seeing if there’s anything with no logo on.” Breaches are an offence under waste management law and risk a fine of up to €5,000."
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/deposit-return-scheme-reliability-not-good-enough-minister-admits-as-our-survey-reveals-extent-of-issues/a1832644804.html
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/04/deposits-on-plastic-bottles-may-rise-to-50-cents-next-year-fd/
Industry is supposed to ensure 90% of drinks bottles are recycled but the figure remains around 70%. One of the main complaints is the lack of places where bottles and cans can be handed in
So the main problem in Holland is lack of bins, the solution to this is double the deposit so they can pay the fines for not achieving targets.
It really is the perfect scam.
It's brilliant really.
I feel a bulk option is a must for this too work, machines grand for a handful of bottles/cans etc maybe at your local store, couple bottles from the car etc. when heading in for the paper etc. but we need a bulk return option, tried my 1st return of big plastic box we've decided to use on friday, local dunnes with 3 machines, 1 not working, big enough Q about 6 people ahead of me, 2nd machine then went down as full, must be some pain for staff at dunnes, 1 member of staff had to go check machine, she then had to go get whomever looks after machine, he arrived with a large empty orange wheelie bin type container to swop out for the full one, which I guess Dunnes now have to store till collection, how many containers does the store have and what happens when they are all full, I saw the container swop over after coming out of store, was in there maybe 15 mins, my recycling returned to the car as I couldnt wait with that many ahead of me
It's worth trying out different positions for the barcode when placing the bottle if it has been rejected first time.
I think different machines have different glitches \ blind spots when it comes to successfully reading it.
Someone mentioned before here that those machines are still being trialled abroad, so not a good idea to start with them here.
Machines I’ve used don’t seem to have a way of reading the barcode if it’s placed on the bottom. So only about 320 degrees of coverage. Rotate it and it’s fine.
It tries to find the barcode on the bottle but this process seems glitchy to me. Seems like it misses it sometimes which is why the same item can fail first time then be read ok.
how long did that take?
I'm more impressed that they have a whole room for recycling everything!
Would a machine like this in Finland not make more sense than the sort of thing we have here?
Looks like you just tip an entire bag of bottles and cans into the machine and it sorts everything out.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/swB_nAVHpPM
One can refused for me so far.
It was one of four identical, the other three worked fine.
And it was a Dunnes machine so I'm guessing maybe it took exception to the way I presented the can 🙂
A lot of things were said about this scheme! I'm still on the fence but will take a side in June and see if it improves after a couple of losses trying to get my deposits back. I think I have about a 70% success rate which means it costs me more time and money for doing what I was doing at home for free. I'm 6km from my nearest machine so if it doesn't work I have a stockpile and have to hope it's working the next time.
That's right I remember that.
They said hold the bottle by the neck and place it on the belt.
But I thought it was supposed to find the barcode for you.
It was posted here a while back that if you insert the containers bottom side into the machines it seems to accept more for some reason.
That's interesting, I thought it didn't make any difference what way you presented the containers.
Must try it out next time.
There won't be any fines for the system not working properly.
The local authority will only be looking at the stock on the shelf to make sure it's all in the scheme.
A small upside in all this is that there may be a few bargains in the next few weeks as shops get rid of old stock.
The error messages on the machines are poor. In Dunnes I put in a bottle, rejected first time, message said something like barcode not in scheme. It had the Re-turn logo. I carefully placed it back with barcode face down and it was accepted. The message should have told me it hadn't read the barcode.
They definitely need to change it so that when an RVM is out of order manual returns are required. When we went to our local Aldi this morning the machine had an out of order sign on it. The previous visit it was being fixed when we went into the store and functioning on the way out. Thankfully we’ve always managed to get a working machine when needed.
Just watched a lad trying to put a load of bottles into one of these things and failing repeatedly. Just wasting his time.
Fucking joke. 🤣
And slap big fines on them.
I've had 4 interactions with the system to date:
1 total failure
2 worked fine
3 machines switched off/ out of order
4 worked fine
Probably about typical. Not fit for purpose.
RePack got the gig and setup Re-Turn ad a new company.
What happens if a customer steal 30 cent from you, will that matter? . That is what you're doing if you don't give them their deposit.
Deleted wrong place
A Red Bull challenge ;-)
Some of the machines occasionally give out for placing your hand too far in. Another peril of having shovel mitts.
it’s an art form. We should arrange competitions to see who can get as many crushed containers to be accepted by the machines in as little time as possible. Could be one an Olympic sport.
I had a chat with a guy in town who I saw collecting from bins last week. He said he works about 12 hours a day, and makes between €50-€75. Not sure how accurate he was with his figures, but that’s what he said anyway. He said he was a former prisoner, so employment opportunities were limited for him. I assume he’s on state supports as well. He also said he’d been moved out of Heuston station by security, who didn’t want him collecting there.
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