Even if we got it up a few percent, every little helps. Deposit schemes are the way to achieve that. Most of the compliant will continue, apart from the high minded who need to make a protest. I have not seen much of it myself, in my rare trips to bottle banks, but Co Councils have notices about not dumping at these facilities. They can be full, and less likely to get cleared on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
https://www.leinsterleader.ie/news/home/532896/kildare-people-warned-not-to-dump-empty-bottles-and-cans-at-recycling-sites.html
I have no idea. But just by coincidence I had a conversation over coffee this morning. Completely by chance one of the people mentioned Circle K. I told them the funny story about the poster here who was annoyed about the 15 cent. And further to that it turned out that two local householders had not done any returns yet. The third is from the North. There is no need for anyone to panic about numbers this early on. Millions of returns will happen every day, and people have to wait to consume what is in the containers. 2029 is the EU target we are working towards, so let's wait and see.
Okay, pin your colours to the mast.
At what date do you think Return will publish figures that give some level of detail on the trend of the scheme - and stop using the "Commercially Sensitive" spiel?
At what date do you anticipate we'll hit the ninety percent target?
If we don't hit the target within 12 months (from June 24) would you deem the scheme a failure? If not, what is an acceptable figure after 12 months and how much longer should the scheme take to get to ninety percent.
I can see how the numbers were so low in February, and will keep on increasing now. At the start I deliberately avoided Re-Turn purchases when out of scope equivalents were available. They were going to be bought by someone else anyway. One is still on sale in Aldi. 2.39 million on Tuesday (07 May) does not demonstrate that the public are viewing it as a scam and doing a boycott. Any calculation about the 5 million a day purchases has to recognise that many of them were out of scope.
"Re-turn said the number of drinks containers being processed is increasing steadily and reached 2.39 million on Tuesday, compared with two million items processed for the entire month of February, the first month of the scheme's operation." (RTE 09 May).
Greyhound do domestic yellow bins for glass. There's an extra charge for it.
They may be poor but theyre not stupid! Theyve weighed up the Re-Turn Olympics versus robbing a can. No contest.
I really don't get the complaints about the scheme.
That is because you have based your whole opinion on the scheme by your own limited experience, personal circumstances and routines.
Not everyone is you.
So bring them back when you’re going shopping. I generally jump off the bus on the way home from work to grab something for dinner that evening/week.
So I’d have to bring my cans/bottle in the morning onto the bus, then onto the train, the onto the minibus that collects me from the train station, keep them beside me in the office, then back on the minibus, back on the train, back on the bus and hopefully the RVM is working. Now the cans/bottles were told aren’t hygienic enough for shops to do manual returns, but you want me to bring them into my office with me??
No thanks. Black bin for everything is working out fine for me. Don’t light the fire with this heat, but there’s plenty there for when it’s warmer and the fire pit is being used in the evening.
Mine collects glass 4 times a year.
I would like to see glass included in our scheme, and maybe that is in the planning
Why?
Our glass recycling rates are exceeding our targets.
Why would you want to shove a big fat expensive inconvenient mess on top of that and annoy the fúck out of everyone further, when there is absolutely no need?
The would either throw them in the general bin, have someone collect them for them, or due to there generally being a lot less glass in their shopping that PET or Aluminium they'd probably drop them to a bring centre whenever the opportunity aroise/was required.
All in all, not ideal.
People who "don't get" the complaints about the scheme - well that's a reflection of their only limited experience. Your mileage may vary, or the level of inconvenience the scheme causes may vary.
Remember it needs to get to 90%. It isn't going to get to that if it just suits people who drive and so their main shopping in a big supermarket with RVMs.
Cases in point:
You could have bought them online and that's where you do your main shopping. Your local shops are exempt. What do you do then?
I go to the shops on foot or bike or bus. I don't know if the machine is working. I get to the shop, it is out of order. Sometimes it is out of order for hours at a time. What do I do with my empties now? I was planning on bringing home the new shopping in those bags. As suggested on the thread, there should be a realtime list of machines by status.
Or, someone who does their shopping in a place which does not have a return point. The size of the exemptions means there are many places with no return point in walking distance, or in the village where they do their shopping. What do they do?
The size exemption should be reduced to its original proposed limit of 150 square metres OR councils should be providing RVMs in locations not served by an RVM and issuing a voucher redeemable in any store selling Re-turn items.
You know you don't have to go back especially to the shop to return bottles.
You clearly bought them somewhere as part of your shopping so you return them as part of your shopping.
Yes, you can recycle at home but there's no way to differentiate who recycles and who doesn't at point of sale.
It is a change of habits, but you can adapt quickly and since introduction I've returned items about 20 times and only once in the first week had I difficulty with machines not working.
Things to be improved: Money should be returned to your bank card rather than using a voucher.
Wheelchair accessibility: Machines very high and out of reach which proves point of disabled people being an afterthought.
Put two cans in Tesco Kimmage last night and both refused despite several attempts. Both were accepted first time in Tesco Rathfarnham
This scheme is just so stupid. I already do my recycling and pay for it.
To follow this I’d have to keep certain items separate, drive a few KMs to the machine and hope it’s in order etc to get a few quid back….
It would probably cost me more in petrol than the deposit is even worth.
It’s actually better for the planet if I just keep recycling as normal and accept the higher cost by not returning them separately.
Sodastream do concentrate for Pepsi and Pespsi Max. If you have die hard "cokeheads", that may be a problem. If they are okay with a cola then it should work decently.
I wonder how those people dispose of glass bottles and jars if they get any in their shopping, delivered or otherwise? My bin company does not allow them in any of their bins. I looked up Greyhound, and they have the same rule. If there was a count of glass bottles and jars, a lot of mine would not be counted until months after purchase.
I don't mind doing it, even though it is a separate journey, unlike bringing Re-Turn empties with me when going to a shop. And the bottle banks run the risk of contamination. I would like to see glass included in our scheme, and maybe that is in the planning. Some other countries do it, some don't. One thing is for sure, it would cause outrage if people had to pay the deposit, on glass bottles and jars. Among the permanently outraged.
Shsssshhh-The Germans may be reading-on how to incorporate the best aspects of ReTurn!
They don't have any competitors so how can information be commercially sensitive!
They are worse than a quango at this stage. The muppet of a minister has just given them a monopoly and walked away laughing his empty head off. Doesn't give a damn about ordinary people. Doesn't give a damn about the actual environment.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0509/1448105-deposit-return/
How exactly is it commercially sensitive to release return figures? Thats the whole point of this convoluted scheme!
So, looking at our future we are exhausted engaging with any of this.
Considering a soda stream and tap water for 'coke' which would be much more environmentally friendly and cheap and less hassle. Anyone else any ideas?
I visited Czechia in 1996, a good long time ago; Pilsen, Prague, Kutna Hora, Brno. It was not a very clean place back then, litter absolutely everywhere, although beautiful Kutna Hora was tidy. You didn’t as much as brush your teeth in the tap water unless you were fond of having severe dysentery. Food could be dodgy, overall quite an unsanitary place. Haven’t been since, but I trust it must have improved considerably since, and I know the tap water issue has been well resolved as with pretty much everywhere in the EU. I suppose the DRS helped solve the litter issue 🤔 or maybe just joining the EU funded a bit of national pride that had been a bit absent hitherto.
So tweak the existing system. Add a tax to plastic bottles. Promote reuseable containers from the consumer AND the supplier POV through whatever means necessary. Increase recycle bin access. Review fines and moreso review enforcement of existing laws in relation to littering. Enhance education in schools.
How much littering is going on? Seems like a bit of a throwaway comment seeing as 80 percent of plastic bottles end up in landfill globally (not even being recycled)
https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/home-hub/plastic-bottle-w
We need to be reducing and reusing with these items - not trying to increase recycling and collectiong rates - that will never solve the problem.
Yes the LAs do and it is taken seriously. In the city, bins are collected from houses/buildings every 3 days. Not once a week like here.
I found this article really interesting: https://english.radio.cz/new-deposit-return-system-drinks-bottles-faces-opposition-local-councils-8799943
I am hearing the exact same propaganda from their environment minister as I hear from ours. But reading push back from their LA's that ours didnt give. I noted their new system will introduce the whole barcode thing.
In an attempt to get more citizens on board, the ministry is appealing to Czechs’ love of nature – according to them, plastic bottles are one of the most frequently discarded items of rubbish that end up littering the Czech countryside.
Obviously most people on this thread have not visited the Czech countryside. I have, and I have to ask if the Environment minister has? Because I never noticed a littering problem anywhere I was. The places were always pristine.
That article honestly reads like they dont already have a DRS scheme, nevermind a recycling scheme in place. But they do, both of them, and have for the last 20+ years.
Which makes me wonder, has an RVM vendor been going around Europe lobbying with brown envelopes to Environment Ministers getting them to adopt a scheme that their machines can fulfill?
Pushing a DRS scheme here when we dont have one is one thing. But replacing a successful DRS scheme in a place where there's is functioning is suspicious, no?
But the Czechs are littering their own country with plastic bottles. Anything is worth a try to get them to behave.
"In an attempt to get more citizens on board, the ministry is appealing to Czechs’ love of nature – according to them, plastic bottles are one of the most frequently discarded items of rubbish that end up littering the Czech countryside."
The LA's appear to have hands on responsibility there for waste/recycle collecting. I can see where there's push back on moving to a "new" scheme - hopefully the local oppositation hold firm for the countrys sake. Tweak whats working.
To be honest, if you did that I'd expect the beggar to tell you to f*ck off. Even our beggars are too posh to go using this system. A black plastic bag containing charitably(LOL) 20 containers is going to get the beggar 3 euro. He or she will make more than that standing in their spot in 20 minutes, than the 20 minute round trip of trying the RVM-lotto.
The Czechs have to update that scheme to comply with EU regulations. Should be next year, if the local opposition can be placated.
https://english.radio.cz/new-deposit-return-system-drinks-bottles-faces-opposition-local-councils-8799943
https://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-proposed-laws/worldwide/czechia
Short answer is I dont know. That is something that really flipping ticks me off though. Not just this one issue, but so many across a range of issues. Considering we are such a small country, why can we not settle on one vendor for a thing?
I have never seen the RVM in a Dealz ever functioning. It's very different to the one in Supervalu and different again to the one in Aldi. Which makes me think they left it up to the retailers to buy the RVMs. Which makes integration of a system 10 times more difficult when you have 3 or 4 different manufacturers with another 3 or 4 different models involved. That explains some shortcomings in the system.
I'm going to stop donating cash to charities/beggars,instead I will hand over a large black bag of returnables,problem solved.
People waste money. Yes, I understand this. HOWEVER
The whole point of this sheme is to increase collection rates to 90 percent - or so we are told. To do this, everyone who has always recycled must engage with this scheme. On top of that, those that didn't engage with recycling in the past must also engage with it (or so we are told).
So while I can control the controlables here and make sure I get my money back it is a pain in the behind relative to how this process worked for me in the past and indeed means that I will lose out on some deposits here and there for various reasons. If I lose out on a deposit, or someone doesn't claim theirs back, thats goes into the ten percent that wont be returned.
What I am seeing currently is a lack of engagement from the general public on this scheme in numbers that you would want to be seeing a few months in. So this whole scheme is completely POINTLESS if 90 percent of items aren't returned.
What happens then? More convoluted bolloxology no doubt, but at all times its the consumers fault.
So, yeah, those people that you don't seem to care about, their use cases, they matter, but I don't believe the architects of this scheme acutally care as the actual implications of not meeting targets aren't anyones fault but the consumer.
It's completely different to the comparisions you've mentioned here.
