Deposit return scheme (recycling)

I assume that , on error, the machine still accepts the bottle/can and you just dont get the credit, otherwise everyone of these places is going to look like a kip in about 2 days as there is no way people are bringing failures back home with them.

I guess the simple solution would be to equip delivery drivers for the supermarkets with with a scanner.

I see that now thanks, I didn't realize Adobe Reader only showed me the first few pages last night.

I see this requirement to have the details of each container in the master container file being a nightmare in practice. Every machine from every manufacturer needs an up to date file or else newly released products are going to be rejected. Each drink vendor in the market is going to have to supply the details of what their container looks like to each machine manufacturer, and apply for and receive a unique barcode from what is essentially a government organisation before they can release their product, and the machine manufacturers are going to have to roll out updates in a timely fashion. This is no easy feat, and repac being at the centre is this isn't going to speed up matters. It's another cost and administrative burden to small drinks producers which will stifle innovation, they'll all revert to glass or use a standard shaped container, which hopefully can use the same barcode across products from different suppliers.

Actually, Re-Turn is expressly NOT a Government organisation. The legalisation (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2021/si/599/made/en/print) required the drinks producers to establish and operate the scheme themselves:

Re-Turn is what they came up with.

The general targets and scope are in the legislation, but the nuts-and-bolts of how it is operated (such as how the containers are identified by the machines) were defined by the industry itself.

On the whole, the scheme is not going to be accepting containers that don't meet the requirements.

There is some scope for the RVMs to accept "non-scheme containers" (and not pay back a deposit), but this has to be agreed with the operators on an individual basis, and they will still go though the weight/visual inspection against the Container Masterfile.

Here's a selection of relevant quotes from the RVM spec document (I linked to previously) regarding rejecting containers:

• "If a container is identified as not empty, the container should be rejected."
• "The compactor should destroy the barcode and all compacted containers should be rejected when attempted to be returned again."
• "Every successful and rejected container represents a transaction, both of which must be registered and reported."
• "Rejections must be tracked and reported for each RVM. Rejections represent failed transactions and attempted deposit redemptions. This provides value for identifying fraud."

Maybe smart establishments will put a general recycling bin nearby if it becomes an issue, but ultimately, it's up to individuals to dispose of their own waste legally and responsibly.

Repak is established under legislation but is also not a Government body. It is a member organisation, which is not for profit and exists to promote recycling and manage packaging compliance. Repak was contracted by Deposit Return Ireland, trading as Re-turn, to manage the operations of the DRS scheme.

I wonder will the smart party goers switch to glass bottles ?

They will have to balance the inconvenience of trying to shepherd their cans all night and get them home later with the price of bottles.

At 15c per can which they will almost certainly lose the glass bottles might look attractive.

Also I have noticed that since MUP when beer is on offer there is often no price difference between bottles and cans which would make the bottles an outright winner.

The cans as a sort of payment for the clean up ? 🙂

Not sure but thermal printer paper doesn't last that long anyway...

A way to increase rates would be to introduce huge fines for not recycling, and increase general littering fines which are laughable, and maybe consider actually enforcing them. This scheme is little different to a fine, you just pay the fine in advance and once you prove your innocence the fine is refunded. Of course many would have an issue with that but personally I would welcome it instead of this idea, which will have a lot of unintended consequences and stuff they are not openly declaring, e.g. the carbon footprint of making and maintaining these machines. Fines would ideally be a based on a % of your income, like other countries do for speeding tickets (and I imagine other things).

Why can't the cans and bottles be crushed?

It's not the worst idea as a way of kick-starting the scheme, even if only for a week or two.

It's the way a lot (the majority?) of new products are marketed - selling at a hugely below cost price for a short introductory period. I do understand that this is 'different', it's not a product as such, and they don't want to add to the start-up costs. But even something like 15p deposit, 20p on return for the first month (on logo-ed items) could help get it off to a positive start.

This is how these schemes operate everywhere

Indo making a front page headline out of something known since day one and always planned for

It's a rather important point for end users, that the majority of retailers won't be taking them back, significantly affecting the inconvenience to those users. Whatever you mean by "Planned for" or not, it clearly shows the convenience of end users was not a priority in the scheme or "planned for".

Does it not mean that if you see can or bottle on the shelf today that the retailer would have paid the deposit to the wholesaler ?

I saw the picture earlier in the thread of a craft beer can with logo but I suspect that was an outlier.

That really only affects people buying water, soft drinks etc on a one-off basis in small shops (and these are the ones most likely to be littered). The vast majority of cans and bottles are sold in multipacks in supermakets and the people who buy them are going back there every week, same as they're already doing with the glass beer bottles they buy and bring back to the bottle bank in the supermarket car park. My local Molloys doesn't have a bottle bank but it doesn't matter because any beer bottles I buy there are just brought back to the supermarket I'm going to anyway.

But they are exactly the sort of purchases least likely to be ending up in green bins at the moment / ending up in littering (as you note) and not in the recycling chain. This needs to get to 90 percent?

That may not be the majority of purchases but it is not insignificant either.

Seems a significant amount of purchases not prioritised.

Theres also the growing numbers getting home deliveries.

It's a non-profit company

Maybe it's been asked already but can you bring a can etc back to any shop? Or the one you bought it from?

Eg: If I buy a bottle from Lidl in Tuam

• I can bring it back to Lidl in Tuam. ✅
• Can I bring it back to Lidl in Dublin?
• Can I bring it back to a Centra in Cork?

Yes, but remember that if you bring it to Centra and put it into one of their machines you have to redeem the voucher in a Centra either for cash or against a purchase there.