Deposit return scheme (recycling) - Part 2

Potential-Monke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122605335#Comment_122605335

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.

dxhound2005

They are paying me big money to be here, and they really want me to be serious. But I have to obey the AH rules:

"Keep it lighthearted; serious discussion is catered for elsewhere on the site."

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122601041#Comment_122601041

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.

Bobson Dugnutt

I actually don’t mind the scheme overall, but it’s very frustrating when you are stuck behind someone at the return machines.
Headed down this evening to the local SuperValu for a few bits and pieces and decided to bring the cans and plastic bottles.

Two complete Jackeens with their kids were ahead of me. Mason and Brady were being lifted up each time to put the cans in the machine. All cheap lager and those premixed gin in a can. The sort of Dubs that paid more for their latest pair of runners than they have in their entire life on books. Not a bother on them to hurry up.

Don’t even know what they were doing there as I live in a pretty salubrious and leafy part of Dublin.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606302#Comment_122606302

In general the cost of the items has not changed much. Measured in the July 2024 Consumer Prices Index, Mineral or Spring Water up 5.1% in the 12 months. Soft drinks up 1.6%. Much lower increases than in some previous years. The August index should be out soon, to see the latest information. There is no evidence that any of the anecdotal increases reported here, have anything to do with DRS.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606340#Comment_122606340

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.

dxhound2005

I agree. I am not interested in WHY some prices went up. Or down as in the case of some one litre Soda Waters. It happened every year when there was no DRS as well. But some people want to link the price changes to DRS, without showing where they got the information.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122605678#Comment_122605678

iT's nOt fEr pRofiT…🤪

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606408#Comment_122606408

No producer or retailer is going to say that they used the consumer confusion around the DRS scheme to increase the base price of their products.

There isn't a person on here apart from the guys who seem to have blinkers on in relation to this scheme who doesn't believe that the unit cost of items that are in cans or PET has in general, increased significantly in the past 8 months or so.

Why the cost actually increases doesn't matter because all you'll every get is overheads have shot up without a break down of overheads.

Following on from these price rises my point is that producers should be asked to pay more an as such pass this on the the consumer until it is not feasible for the producer to continue to use PET or cans or to at least use them in a more sustainable way. There's zero onus on them to do this with this scheme..... It's a farce.

You just need to look at other countries to see that the use of PET continues to rise with this scheme.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606378#Comment_122606378

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606522#Comment_122606522

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.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606522#Comment_122606522

The confusion must be that some people think the deposit is a price increase. But it isn't, and the Index does not count it as an increase. Unless you think the CPI figure of a 1.6% increase over the 12 months up to July is a fraud, then your contention that there has been a big increase does not make sense. And you are repeating the conspiracy theory about the supply line using DRS as a cover for increases. That is an old one here. And it falls down, because there were bigger increases before DRS.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606768#Comment_122606768

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.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606643#Comment_122606643

Necessity often enhances the development of other options. If there's no necessity, as there is at the moment, nothing will change, in fact things will get worse. So while the options on the table at the moment seem limited ironically enough we are used to this process with glass bottles and generally seem to have accepted it. It's a fairly straightforward system ironically.

Not saying it's the solution, like any it could be tweaked but again without the stick to go there it never will happen. Again, how serious are we about these issues?

The DRS as it stands is a farce.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122606768#Comment_122606768

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.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607178#Comment_122607178

Indeed. If the price of the product has increased by the value of the DRS, then there is a price increase.

Example. 4 pack of beer costs 10 euro before DRS.

4 pack of beer now costs 10.60, with 15c DRS on each can.

This is an increase to the product price.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607178#Comment_122607178

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/

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607224#Comment_122607224

CPI is dealing with macro data, not DRS specfic products. There is no doubt that some DRS products have increased in price.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607196#Comment_122607196

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.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607230#Comment_122607230

Its still a price increase to the consumer, however we may like to dress it up or deflect.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607233#Comment_122607233

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

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607196#Comment_122607196

Im starting to agree with this being a price increase.

I dont really care how many times the word deposit is used. Its not a "deposit" as Ive ever known it. Deposit to me means a small partial payment of total price with the rest to follow or a damage deposit in case of breakage when renting a property. Anything requiring free labour should not be called a deposit.

Its not a deposit or a tax. Its a surcharge you will only get back if you do extra work for free.

FLSRS. Free Labour Surcharge Return Scheme.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607236#Comment_122607236

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.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607245#Comment_122607245

You could be making a mistake.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607242#Comment_122607242

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

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607242#Comment_122607242

And even if you do the work and return your 4 cans, you have still paid 10 euro for the beer, when previously, 10 euro bought the beer plus the cans.

Returning your cans gets the overpayment on the cans back; but you cannot redeem 100% of the "deposit", since the beer itself must have cost 9.40 prior to DRS, but now it costs you 10 euro.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607260#Comment_122607260

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

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607255#Comment_122607255

How so? I dont follow, sorry.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607267#Comment_122607267

You could be making a mistake by claiming that they made a mistake.

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607259#Comment_122607259

I care that you had a soda water relapse this evening. I thought we'd moved on from that.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607224#Comment_122607224

Again, how is it a conspiracy theory - business often take advantage of events to promote themselves/increase prices. That's a factual statement.

I've seen at least two items that I would regularily have bought (and one of which I would argue is a very popular item) increase in price by at least ten percent and another to increase by a similiar amount. That's factual - January the price was 2:00 as on the outside of the bottle, March it changed to 2:20 - that was on the outside of the bottle - again a fact.

The CPI doesn't track 24 packs of anything - but you'll see posts in here form people who were familiar with them state that retaillers/producers dropped them to 18 packs, amended the price, but ended up being more expensive per unit.

These are all things that have been brought up again and again. You like to soda water one - but it's not a reflection of the market in general - not even close to it.

And again - my point - there's talk of the DRS fee going up to "force" people to use the scheme - completely pointless. Place a significant tax on the producers, have them pass that onto the consumer (as they do anyway) - make it punitive to deal in PET or ALU until such as time as retailers and producers find a way to start reducing their useage. Everything else is just lip service.

pauly58

For the second week running, the machine in our local Aldi jammed the receipt & wouldn't print it out, I felt sorry calling one of the girls over, she said she was s**t sick of it, been waiting weeks for the engineer. They have to open it up & free the roll.

sligeach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607533#Comment_122607533

Ya, I've had that happen to me as well. The receipt had printed but it stuck inside the machine. I absolutely despise this scam.

I'd love for people to march on the streets to get rid of it like they did for the water charges. But it's slightly different, as we're not being technically charged for this, as it's a deposit and we can get it back. It's an absolute pain in the H0L€ though, between all the inconvenience and the machines being inconsistent and broken much of the time.

Anyway, here's one of several notices I seen up yesterday at an Aldi, with 2 outside DRS machines. First Aldi I've been to with 2 machines.

🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝

🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝

At least they're trying I guess, I've used other outside DRS machines where they're clearly not.

Not made with hands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122605255#Comment_122605255

Customers?

sligeach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122605255#Comment_122605255

Semantics? I'd almost argue it is a tax, between all the inconvenience and hassle. But there's plenty of situations where it ceases to be a deposit for the buyer, and becomes a tax.

Buy minerals when visiting someone in hospital

Buy cans/bottles at an airport

Your kids don't bring back their empties

Buy someone a 6/8 pack of beer as a gift. Go to a house party

The DRS machine accepts the empty but doesn't give you credit for it. It's happened to me numerous times.

odyssey06

I seem to remember earlier in the thread the notion that the machines would attract wasps was met with disbelief if not derision… and yet here we are.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607717#Comment_122607717

A lot of stuff was said on this site at the back end of last year, early this year about this sheme that was laughed at. These things have happened and worse still NOTHING has been done to resolve the issues that were spotted well before the scheme came into play.

I remember a news piece where one of the czars of ReTurn we asked how they were going to manage returns from those that shop from home or were house bound and had to shop from home - think he pushed it back on the retailers to resolve in the coming months - still nothing. Just one example.

On the wasps/insects issue - which was always going to be an issue - how do they manage this in the warmer countries where this scheme is a "success" - Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Holland etc?

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607661#Comment_122607661

It was in response to this:

"Immediately when the project goes live, and for the six months since, your customer base points out flaws that WILL prevent you from reaching your target."

Not made with hands

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607932#Comment_122607932

You called them customers. Not sure why you are trying to deflect.

Are we customers or not?

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122607696#Comment_122607696

…this is a form of taxation, and this approach to our environmental issues simply wont work, we have to start implementing policies that actually bring people along, not just p1ss people off, its very disturbing to see the lack of understanding that is occurring within our political institutions in regards our environmental problems, they simply dont have a clue what to do…

…taxing, indebting and simply p1ssing people off, wont solve these issues, they ll just escalate them!

RT Grey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122598176#Comment_122598176

I do agree, I think the scheme is nuts. They charge extra so you claim it back, extra work, machines, total waste of money all round. Packaging should be recyclable and bio-degradable. It annoys me when packaging is bumping the volume of the product to try sell more. Cereals are great at it. Change the manufacturing process, not the waste process.

RT Grey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122594896#Comment_122594896

They kept loosing them 🙄

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608267#Comment_122608267

yup, but that would mean drawing attention to the creators of our goods and services, and thats a no no, as they are simply untouchable, and environmental issues are simply the problem of the purchasers of our goods and services!

dxhound2005

Some good advice here from a Professional Organiser.

https://re-turn.ie/re-turn-teams-up-with-professional-organiser-sarah-reynolds-to-create-clever-storage-hacks-for-bottles-and-cans/

"Household involvement and responsibility

Think about ways to incentivise household members and use the Scheme collectively for a sustainable future. Sarah suggests creating a chart to track collections and receive rewards or put Deposit Return vouchers or the deposit cash towards a special occasion or treat."

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608525#Comment_122608525

…or maybe we should be creating policies to try actual reduce our overall creation of certain materials, to actually try prevent escalation of our environmental damage, such damage done is not an 'externality'!

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608525#Comment_122608525

To be honest, that's a crock of $#&@. Clever storage hack? Nothing beyond what everybody's doing. As for incentives to comply by using charts and rewards: Absolute rubbish.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608272#Comment_122608272

I can imagine that's a problem with smallies.

Maybe it'll work better in a few years time

CH3OH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608569#Comment_122608569

+1

Good to know where Return are spending the money.

How much does a partner get for this very basic common sense advice?

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608546#Comment_122608546

In the meantime a few ideas to make the current scheme work is no harm.

There is already a move to more sustainable packaging but progress is slow.

There are reduction strategies that anyone can build into their routine.

Stuff like buying loose veg rather than plastic wrapped and carrying a reusable water bottle are small easy steps.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608569#Comment_122608569

That's a very negative attitude.

kippy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122608525#Comment_122608525

ReTurn have a significant marketing and PR/Spin budget - we know this from the actions of the past number of months.

A "professional organiser" - f88k off.

Now, I would be interested to see the research that ReTurn have done (referenced at the top of that article) - just to see what they are asking and who is answering.