Deposit return scheme (recycling) - Part 2

Oh I think the negatives hugely outweigh the benefits for me. I absolutely abhor paying a deposit, keeping bottles and cans intact in bags, taking them to a machine I have to queue at (that's often OOO and doesn't always refund for all the items it takes), and pay for a recycling bin I had been putting 100% of bottles and cans into anyway.

Jaysus 😳!

Don't be giving the government ideas. From next July you could be donating blood at an RVM to get your 15c back.

And there we have it folks. Finally an admittance that you don't care about anyone else except yourself so screw everyone else and their legitimate issues with a scheme you're happy with. At least we know we xan ignore everything you say from now on, because you're only in it for yourself. Not that I was really paying attention to an obvious shill anyway, but good to have final confirmation. You'd be great in government.

The producer fee needs to be increased if anything and that cost needs to be passed on to the consumer. Why? Well the costs of the items have increased dramaticilly (in general) over the past few months - particularily PET. At this point people need to be paying through the nose for using PET at all, ensuring the producers actually need to come up with alternative, more environmentally friendly packaging or methods to distribute their product. As well all know in countries where this sheme is said to be a "success" - the amount of PET in circulation has actually increased instead of reducing. This isn't good for the environment - the opposite in fact.

I'm at the point where I don't really care any more - this scam has holes all over it and isn't going to do what it is supposed to do in its current guise. If you want to be serious about the environment - be serious about it - the amount of admin/pr/bluster/hassle/nonsense that is tied to this scheme is without equal in my experience.

I don't think it matters WHY prices have increased but if you look in many shops and you had a "habit" of buying a certain drink you'd know that that drink has (in my experience increased anywhere between 5 and 10 percent in cost since the turn of the year.
I already used Lucozade zero as it had its prices outlined on the bottle before and after the price rises came in - there have been more - a standard bottle of coke can be 2.75 in some locations when it wasn't near that before - someone has made the decision to increase those prices - doesn't really matter if it was DRS or not, but DRS was definely used as an opportunity to increase those prices during consumer confusion. I am just saying, prices have increased for whatever reason, continue to increase them until something changes and forget about the smoke and mirrors of the DRS.

My point is, these items should be five euro each - with the producer passing on any fees to the consumer or absorbing it - the need to come up with other methods of distibution and will never do so if the alternative isnt hurting their business.

So again, skip the BS with this scheme and go straight to the point where it's gonna cost a person or company to use PET products in their supply line.

iT's nOt fEr pRofiT…🤪

It's an interesting proposition to do away with cans and PET.

Have you considered the alternatives ?

The only viable ones at the moment are higher density reusable plastic or reusable glass containers.

Both of these involve deposit and return.

Empty containers would have to be stored in homes and brought to shops to reclaim deposits.

People who have a problem with RVMs would still have to queue up to return empties to a shop assistant.

The empties would have to be sorted and transported to the bottling plants to be washed and refilled.

I'm not sure that there would be widespread acceptance among producers, retailers or consumers for such a change.

Another logic fail.

Previous price increases can have different explanations.

It does not preclude companies increasing prices either to cover DRS costs OR to take use DRS as cover to increase prices. There has been a big increase in the price of certain branded products in scope of DRS.

DRS has also lead to items disappearing entierely from stores, cheaper imported items such as non alcoholic beers in Dunnes and items also gone from Holland and Barrett.

That would not necessarily show up in CPI as they have a specific limited list of DRS related items they price check.

There is no confusion except insofar as your post isdeliberate muddying of the waters.

General confusion around where the drs is applied, what premises charge it, whether it is included in the price of the item, where/when it can be reclaimed etc.....

Does the CPI track, price of a 24 pack of Coca-Cola, price of a bottle of lucozade Zero, price of large bottle of coke? Because these are where I am seeing major change.....

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's a theory backed up by my own research and that of many around me. Again, you will never have a company admit they used consumer confusion as a good cover for hiking prices. They'll tell you the usual costs have gone up without specifics. These companies are making significant profits.

It's a conspiracy theory. Any proper research would have got to the bottom of those charges you make against the companies. And shown the proof. They are certainly not borne out by the level of price increases, compared to the past. I don't know if the CPI tracks 24 packs of anything. You might find the information here:

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/prices/consumerpriceindex/methodologydocuments/csoconsumerpriceindexmethodology/

For the purposes of the CPI, they don't count it as part of the base price. So their monthly figures are a like for like comparison. That does away with any confusion on that score. And as we found out before, neither do accountants or the Revenue call it a price increase.

Dress it up as a refundable deposit. That way it cannot be a price increase. My opinion.

Agreed, but the mistake made was to add the price of the deposit on top of the price of the product.

If they had built the DRS into the original product price, there would be no price increase and folks would genuinely have got their deposit back, in exchange for the containers they returned.

You really do care. I'm the one who doesn't care.

You have introduced "overpayment" as a new concept into the discussion. Is it the same as a price increase?