Deposit return scheme (recycling) - Part 2

The Re-Turn people get to keep €54 million from people who want to hold on to their empty bottles/cans. Because those people bought them and they own them and they have the right to keep them. That is the argument I saw on the thread. They also get to keep the money from people who refuse to cash in their vouchers, on a point of principle. It is a strange world.

Also inhabited by at least one oddball who can't distinguish between a refundable desposit and a price increase.

I think you chose not to understand what that person was saying. Previously, they paid a certain price and they owned the empties. Now, after paying a deposit, the person has to pays the price + the deposit, but to get the deposit back, they have to sacrifice the empties which they previously would have kept/recycled their own way.

Now, they will make less of a 'profit' on their side-business/charity of making donkeys from bottles, all in aid of the local donkey sanctuary. Why do you and Re-Turn hate the donkeys so much? 😥

If you read the t's & c's you'd know that's not available ATM.

I think it should be available but I'm not that bothered to go campaigning about it.

No.

It’s not sorted though. What if I don’t have my wallet that contains the receipt? What if I want to spend the money on something other than groceries. Life is supposed to be made easier by these changes not harder. Just refund the bloody deposit electronically ffs, the same way I paid for it in the 1st place!

Nothing in the scheme is designed to make life easier, even if there is no deliberate intention to make it harder. It was easier for everyone not to have to pay a deposit. And not to have to go to a machine to get the deposit back. Whoever told you that it was supposed to make life easier, was having you on.

Everyone involved is a polluter, and it is a polluter pays scheme. Consumers are paying with the effort and time involved in storing the containers, and transporting them to the machines. And some small inconvenience in dealing with refund vouchers.

What do you mean by:

What does it matter what you spend the money?
That sentence makes no sense.

Of course it matters where I spend my money and on what and how.

Return are making life difficult for me

Or here's another suggestion for @tom1ie - if he really does want to get deposits back via the same medium he used to buy the items in the first place, then simply pay for them with some of the cash reserves he mentioned in an earlier post.

QED 😊

Laughable to still hear "polluter pays". Any extra cost for this DRS is ultimately paid by the customer. Its nonsense.

The price of soft drinks has sky rocketed since the introduction of this scheme also the variety of drinks on sale has decreased. I make a trip to the north now once every few months and stock up on cans mixers and throw my cans bottles in my recycling bin. I’ll continue to do this until the introduce the scheme up there. An example this week sainsbury have 24 cans of Pepsi max for 7 sterling cheapest I’ve seen down here is 10 euro for 18 and deposit on top of that crazy stuff. We are been ripped off here for everything.

There is no connection between price increases and the deposit scheme. And the prices of the overall Soft Drinks and Mineral Waters categories have seen only small increases. There are monthly figures from the Consumer Prices Index.

The very big increases came after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and before DRS. I have reported before that own brand one litre Soda Waters went from 25 cents to 75 cents during that very high inflationary period. Those products reduced in price since DRS.

It's NOT a polluter pays scheme. There's NO onus on the producers and profiting organisations to pay any sort of significant fee for their products nor is there any reason for them to reduce the amount of PET in circulation.

The schemes whole point is to get people returning specific items. The easier this is to do for those people, the better the chances of hitting collection targets.

There's no real reason for a lot of the issues encountered only for the vested interests of all of the 'profiting' organisations in the scheme. The consumer is the last person thought of, but the only one in the chain paying significantly.

As I have said countless times before if you really want the polluter to pay stick a 2 or 3 euro tariff on each item paid for by the producer. This would force the producers look at more environmentally friendly ways of distribution......

Check out Extended Producer Responsibility. Which is another way of saying Polluter Pays. More bad stuff coming down the line from the associated legislation in Ireland. I expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth when people have to pay extra if they don't bring their own reuseable cup to the local coffee emporium.

Poxy Scam

Paying into bank accounts may not be as widespread in other countries as some people are suggesting. Certainly not long standing anywhere that I can see. Not available in Germany, unsurprising given the German love for cash and suspicion of credit cards and the like. And being cash only has not impacted negatively on the success of the scheme there. They have had many years of the scheme to get to that point.

A touch of Big Brother about the electronic system. If the government ever get round to trying to tax the income that bottle/can pickers make, they will struggle as long as that is only being paid in cash.

https://www.tomra.com/en-ie/reverse-vending/media-center/news/2022/supermarkets-can-now-offer-digital-recycling-refunds-through-their-store-loyalty-programs

https://www.tomra.com/en-ie/reverse-vending/media-center/feature-articles/germany-deposit-return-scheme

And our AI friend.

AI OverviewIn countries with deposit return schemes, refunds are typically issued in the form of cash, rather than directly to a bank account. You return empty, undamaged containers to reverse vending machines (RVMs) and receive your deposit back as cash or as a credit on your next purchase. While some schemes may offer online registration for refunds, the primary method is cash returns.