The new recycling system

The last number of pages have been primarily the efforts of one wannabe Del Boy to figure out how he can make money off it, not the actual scheme.

But if we had a scheme as chronically limited, tortuously expensive and complicated as your suggestion we'd probably be at 4800 pages.

Seriously - your proposal is the opposite of simple and is not convenient for anyone other than the registered payer of a household waste contract. I assume you are one, but far far more people aren't.

Ahh here, i already told you it's chico marx i wanted to be, NOT del boy. Who's not reading who properly now? i consider the last few pages to be really insightful content regarding the whole thing.

It feels like you're just being biased in favor of the scheme and shooting down/disagreeing with any suggestions anyone else makes about it. Do you have any suggestions yourself on how to improve this scheme? give some ideas.

And also whats the harm in making a little extra on the side, or trying to figure out how to make money off of it? you say it like its a bad thing.

i appreciate your amusement, but i think going out the front door of any of those places might be a bad idea as the entrances all have security cameras for insurance reasons. The backs however rarely ever a camera in sight, easiest way i can imagine is if you know someone who's working in one of those places, and they "accidentally" misplace a bag of cans out back and then they allegedly let you know by having a slip of the tongue. Accidentally phone you and tell you the cans are out back, thinking or pretending they was on the phone with their boss. Hows about that! :D

https://www.oreillyrecycling.ie

The thing about fraudsters is they are very creative. 1% probably a fair estimate to begin with but who knows, it could be higher.

Some ways Fraud could work, not in any particular order.

Label fraud. Suggested on here and an obvious starting place. Print records and barcodes for legitimate bottles, then attach them to bottles and cans from over the border, or from say bottles / cans from an exempt event, or dairy product etc.

Switch fraud. Similar to the above, switch the barcode of a 15c item for a 25c item for 10c more.

Employee fraud. Employee fraud is big in any sector, his has potential on a scheme like this. Employee collects items from the small retailer, issues a credit, but instead of bringing them all back to depot, keeps some: then later deposit some of those cans in an RVM. Other ways would be to undercount what the retailer gives you, etc.

Impersonator fraud. Call into a manual collection point and say you are from re-turn. Collect the items. Probably not worthwhile except say after a local festival or another time a retailer has volume to take away

Fraud on damaged goods. Items are sent to waste as damaged / out of date / old branding (in the supply chain) but as well as being declared waste, are also aken to an RVM.

Producer Fraud. As above, declare items wasted, but reclaim at an RVM.

Outright theft of goods, walk out without paying, consume the product, then claim the credit. 6 packs walk out every day, this is a lovely little added incentive for anyone with the neck to do this.

So plenty of scope, and I am sure there are other ways too.

LOL! Haven't the evangelising proponents of this scheme been pointing out from the start that a key feature will be hobos, kids and winos wandering the streets and litter picking to get a few measly cents.

The poster is right - there is some value in these goods. How to maximise it and game the system is a fair question and one you should welcome.

I also take from above that you are not a registered payer of a household waste contract, which explains why you don't give a crap about the 00s of € we spend every year on the perfectly good existing system???????????

The existing system isn't perfectly good

It probably isn't perfect, haven't we been told ad nauseum on here no scheme is, but it is a perfectly good scheme.

It is convenient, simple, incentivised and based on the principle of recycling.

The complete opposite of this new one which punitive, inconvenient and a scheme based on litter collection.

There is no evidence I have seen that any of these schemes lead to less production of single use plastics in the fact the evidence suggests the polar opposite.

So in the main it really is just a box ticking exercise.

A far more nuanced approach building on our successes would have a far greater chance of having an environmental impact, I imagine in 10-15 years time we will be changing tact again and the majority of course will again foot the bill.

 "ridiculous, complex system that is only easier for them is not a sensible suggestion". Everything there is only your opinion, based on assumptions you have made, you have cherry-picked parts of my argument, and completely ignored others.

You've made your point, and made it assertively a few times now, there is no need to continually repeat them every time you post.

"The existing system isn't perfectly good"

Agreed in the sense that it doesn't readily allow for the accurate production of statistics for the materials concerned. This new scheme is being introduced to facilitate bean counting for EU bureaucrats - it's our equivalent of the straight banana controversy.

You have the containers from your own cafe/restaurant etc.

It's worth noting the EU directive is primarily based on collection stats, not recycling targets.

Specific targets include

• a 77% separate collection target for plastic bottles by 2025 – increasing to 90% by 2029
• incorporating 25% of recycled plastic in PET beverage bottles from 2025, and 30% in all plastic beverage bottles from 2030

If only we knew what are collection stats were now. There may be no need for all this. 🤷‍♀️

It's also worth noting the process to recycle plastic is more polluting and more expensive then creating virgin plastic.

But the environment, something something.

Collection rate of 140%.

Thanks for taking the time to propose an alternative.

A few holes i'd poke in it as you say.

It doesnt improve waste segregation. It keeps the existing system where food grade plastic Rpet and aluminium is contaminated by cofffee, yoghurt and all the other stuff that goes into your green bin. Even an incredible Rfid product, which really doesnt exist in practice couldnt differentiate that level of contamination and even if it could, the issue of customers being told that they were being docked cash becuase the quality of the bottles they were recycled was poor would cause serious rows and is I think impossible to measure in any meaningful way. This would leave the decision on how much to rebate firmly in the hands of a private company with a profit motive.

A Huge part of the rationale for these schemes is creating a dedicated waste stream to improve the quality of recyclate and improve not just the % returned but also the quality and ability to use that material in a circular way. Your solution doesnt help that.

Secondly and related to that, the scope for disagreement on the level of payment for pristine bottles would be huge. Scanning technology misses product pretty frequently. You dont have that issue with an RVM. If you do have a technical problem, you can directly challenge with Tesco, Lidl etc. You wouldnt receie the rebate under your schem until after the rubbish was gone, so no way of proving.

There is another consideration here. Which people generally dont like, but it is a key driver of the scheme and a reason why the single use plastics directive was introduced. DRS is an extended producer responsibility scheme. EPr is a bit like carbon tax, the aim of it is to change producer and consumer behaviour. Governments are not going to take on the cost of recycling becuase they believe that cost should lie with the producer and the consumers who choose to purchase those products. At least this is a deposit and not a levy. There are a number of new packaging levies coming - all aimed at reducing packaging.

Was nothing else considered? Id say Ireland looked in other markets and went with what people believe makes sense. Digita has been trialled in a number of places and the experience suggests it doesnt work at scale. The UK govt were being strongly pushed to base their scheme on digital and they have made it clear that based on the trials by the welsh govt, that they will not. That approach is essentially the bones of what you are suggesting. There are different waste collection systems all over Europe but DrS schemes are outperfoming all of them for cans and bottles. They dont solve anything else, but they work well for those products.

I know another solution that some want is the multi-stream collection, such as exists in some places in NI. That is a better soution in terms of recylate quality, but when multiple bins were proposed in the UK the idea was not terribly popular. I should say this wasnt as an alternative to DRS but the principle could have been adapted to that in theory.

Final point, your solution suggests it would be good to support the waste management businesses. It also places massive faith in them to put in place a system which they would control. They would also need to put in place very substantial admin systems and customer service to back up the disputes that would inevitably arise. I wonder whether peoples experiences of their Waste Management provider would suggest that they are the people to drive this.

There is also, (it wasnt the final point) the issue that your solutin doesnt help the ever increasing population that lives in shared accommodation, appartment blocks etc. Thats not a killer but it would mean that your solution doesnt help a fair chunk of the population.

Anyway, those are my thought. Thank you for the post though. I enjoyed reading and responding to it.

If they're charging you the deposit it's your right to reclaim the deposit, make sure they know this if they ever try something funny