Millions of plastic bottles are now no longer going to waste.
You dont know that. No-one does. There's no transparency.
Lots of obvious major "tweaks" needed have been ignored. Bin surrounds are way down this list. Nonsense.
The root issue of plastic has not been addressed. Its just been dressed up in Green propaganda with this scheme so it can continue being used.
No publication of total unclaimed deposits. The circular economy minister says Re-Turn wont give him this info 🤣
Re-Turn has been a success alright. Successful in pretending to fix a problem and taking 10s of millions of euro from customers with zero accountability.
I am waiting for RECYCLED Items numbers-not collection.
Alongside monthly total plastic bottles sold in 2024 to compare with the last 10 years.
I'll say this for the Guardian, they at least set the 600m (or 630m) in context by mentioning 1.7bn containers sold p.a. (the government say is 1.8bn). Normal reporting is to exclaim the big number and paste in a self congratulatory quote from Ciaran "delighted" Foley.
When you say around 50% of items sold since the launch of Re-turn have not been returned, it doesn't sound so good.
And nowhere, ever, do we see reports of how high the mountain of unpaid deposits stands (or what they are doing with it). Like it's none of our business.
It doesn't matter how many dozen times this stuff gets posted on this thread, you will have to wait until the scheme is going for a year.
(May 2024) Return rates The Irish Scheme began on 1 February 2024. Retailers are still phasing out non-logo and non-deposit drinks containers on shelves until the end of the transition period, 31 May 2024. Therefore, Ireland will not have a full year of the scheme in action until 1 June 2025 to assess more accurate return metrics. The assumption of an equal number of containers sold daily throughout the year, 5 million per day, doesn’t align with the actual sales pattern of drink containers. Peak periods, such as Christmas and the summer months, significantly impact sales. Additionally, this method fails to consider the volume of non-deposit stock sold by retailers during the transition period until 31 May 2024.
My net point is that Re-turn get a free run to selectively put numbers out into the press without context or challenge.
I don't think anything will change after a year, we will still only get the number returned.
You can come back and quote me around 1 Feb 2025, re-turns birthday. What we will definitely get around then is the news that Ireland has returned it's billionth container -yay! (and that Mr Foley is "delighted").
There is no such thing as an unpaid deposit. It can be collected any time in the future.
Finding the scheme fine, it's a bit annoying the build up of containers in the house so that has actually forced us as a family to reduce our usage. We used alot of bottled sparkling water so bought a sodastream type thing instead. That should be the goal of the scheme.
Deposit all my containers in my local Aldi, big black bag done in 5 mins. Your too lazy to do it? Fine keep giving up your money to return and contributing to some suits high 6 figure salary.
Takes more than 5 minutes when the machine is broken though.
And there are always cans the machine will reject so you don't get your money back.
The machine sucked my receipt back in one day. Lost a few quid there.
Re Dublin Airport and the deposit -
I was in Berlin airport the other evening, and bought 2 bottles of water from one of the shops there.
Was charged 25c deposit for each bottle.
So it seems Dublin is not alone in its moneygrab for re-turn!
Theoretically, yes, any one deposit may be reclaimed at any point in the schemes future.
But not every deposit paid will be reclaimed, so a time based probability will be factored in. An accounting rule will be adopted as a mechanism to release unclaimed deposits. (Sidenote: the very funding model underpinning re-turn is to use unclaimed deposits to run the scheme).
More to the point, what did th water cost in the airport
Same in the Netherlands and in Denmark. If there's a return point in Schiphol or Billund, its not marked anywhere.
Berlin BER has at least one in a shop in the concourse areas before security, didn't see any beyond.
Not to the point of the thread at all actually. It's the deposit and return process that matters.
It doesn't matter how many times you post this because its our money. We should see stats for total refunded deposits v unrefunded every month. Same goes for returned containers v containers sold so the public don't have to wait a year to (maybe) be kept informed. Pathetic excuses about Christmas sales are just that. Pathetic.
George Lee has the numbers. But matching sales with returns in any month is meaningless.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/1024/1477146-bottle-collection/
"Only two million vessels, or 2%, were returned for collection during that first month. By seven months in, the number of containers returned monthly had grown 56 times higher. It was up to 112m drinks containers during August, equivalent to 73% of the amount sold that month."
5 million sales a day in August = 155 m. 112 m returns. 112/155x100 = 72.26%. George is going along with the received wisdom that every day there are 5 million sales. Like the experts here he just ignores seasonal variations. Nonsense calculation. And this is not the first time that RTE journalists have done this nonsense.
So by the same approach, without that %, Re-turn giving out information in isolation about how many bottles were returned at present are nonsense figures. "Experts" here shouldn't ignore seasonal variations so I assume you will take your own advice going forward.
Used a return machine for the first time last weekend. The car boot has a subfloor where we put out empties that's now full. Surprisingly fast and easy in Tesco Rathfarnham. €10 voucher spent in store.
I wonder what percentage reduction in plastic litter Coastwatch have noticed, similar to the 30% reduction on land?
Exactly. This is the Re-Turn line. But there is no harm in knowing how many returns there are.
"Ireland will not have a full year of the scheme in action until 1 June 2025 to assess more accurate return metrics.
to assess more accurate return metrics
The assumption of an equal number of containers sold daily throughout the year, 5 million per day, doesn’t align with the actual sales pattern of drink containers. "
3.50 (+25c deposit) per 500ml bottle.
I found tetra paks of water in another shop (similar to DAA's set up) for 2 euro.....after I'd bought the expensive bottles, of course!
(Sorry for off topic reply)
If there's "no harm" in knowing how many returns there are, then there is "no harm" in knowing what % that roughly represents. As long as both have the caveat of seasonal variations \ needing full year to assess fully.
This quote from the RTE article makes the distinction between "placed on the market" and "sold".
collection rates reported for the scheme are calculated based on the volume of containers collected for recycling as a percentage of the total volume of containers placed on the Irish market.
The term "placed on the market" means the number of bottles and cans made available by producers for sale or distribution rather than actually sold.
The full report of the Coastwatch survey for 2024 has not been published yet.
They have stated that a reduction in litter has been noted.
This initiative very soon will be embedded practice in Irish life and will deliver a very successful reduction in waste. It's proponents will be forgotten, never thanked for their idea or execution of it, and the general public will move on to complain about the next big thing.
The port tunnel, national motorway network, rural broadband, schools capital programme were similar in their trajectory in public opinion, and in time the children's hospital will be the same.
and will deliver a very successful reduction in waste
If you say so mystic meg. Since we're the ones funding it Id rather have the stats to see if its actually happening without being told I might get them after a year.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/1026/1477541-deposit-return-scheme/
Oh dear, I don't know who to believe now!! But in fairness "placed on the market" does not necessarily equate to being purchased. Awaiting comment from ReTurn.
Another point-why does every article highlight the € deposit amount being repaid? It is a meaningless statistic but I suppose it looks good in print.
Is this real ?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9nCMAzPJAG/?igsh=bndycjVqY256NWU5
What is it? Not opening a dumped link.
