Deposit return scheme (recycling)

Another ~140 locations on the map; and it now gives me the correct closest for my house - even though it was always there!

Still a local-ish shop that I know has RVMs in service not on the map so its still incomplete.

Need more than an update. Enter my eircode and it says 4.77 km when in fact it is 27km. What a fecking joke

I worked in Germany for a number of years, and have used the return system for glass, plastic and Al cans. I'm not against it, it does work and it becomes the norm for the people.

But here are the downsides ...

Machines were forever not working. Larger supermarkets had room for 2+ machines, and they needed them as one was always out of order.

There used to be long Q's at the machines at busy times. Many times, I just left, offering my bag of returns to someone in the Q.

If you are on foot and bring your returns in a bag or backpack and find the machine out of order, you have to carry them home again as well as your new shopping.

In the end as I didnt have spare time due to work and travelling most weekends, after a couple of months, I just put my returns into the house recycle bins.

As I previouly posted, I'd rather see the government and local authorities start by tackling fly tipping, dog poo in public and increasing public bins before we progress to the bottle & cans return system.

( copied from Briskoda.net )

had people the past few days trying to put empty cans of dog food into them, few arrived in bags of bottle they stock piled over Christmas.

fun time loading them back into their cars to bring them home. the idot with bags full had being told past 3 weeks the machines would not accepted them.

I haven’t used the machines yet but I’m wondering what happens with multi pack cans or bottles? I see on online shopping that these now also have the deposit attached but how can you return them when they don’t have a barcode? As I understand, the machine has to scan a valid barcode- can you take those cans/ bottles back to the till inside the shop to get your deposit back?

Eh, they now have a barcode.

Thanks, I didn’t realise they were adding barcodes to the multi pack ones now. I was drinking a can from a multi pack that dh bought on Thursday so was just wondering- these ones don’t have barcodes.

did you get charged a deposit on them?

Why make the input so high,or is she very short,if you are inputting a lot of bottles it would delay the process?

I don’t know, dh bought them and forgot to check the receipt before throwing it away. It’s possible he didn’t but it just made me think about future multi packs.

Slightly OT but an old boss I had while working in retail used to regularly open multipacks and sell the cans and bottles, as they were cheaper for him to buy. When the “not to be sold separately” “barcodes” came in, in the late 90s/ early naughties, it put a kibosh to it. It’ll be interesting to see how companies handle that now!

Looks more like a tesco initiative than a Re-Turn one at first glance, still a great idea. It's directly beside the RVM so somebody with bottles and cans for recycling is unlikely to have rubbish with them at these machines

The retailers shouldn't charge the deposit unless it will be accepted for return, but that doesn't mean they can't. For example, we saw at the changeover to the euro, most prices were rounded up, sometimes excessively. A lot of retailers will do what is easiest/most profitable for them when changes like this come along.

Anyone else noticed a shortage of water in their local supermarket since this new scheme? My nearest Tesco seem to have sold out on all their old 2L stock and haven't updated with the new logo bottles yet for whatever reason, all while non-applicable 5L bottles are getting stockpiled fast leaving an empty water isle. Stock for soft drinks and alcohol cans seems kind of sparse as well.

"Saving you time, money and energy".

Part of an ad I heard on the radio, didn't catch the company, but it's what countless companies say to try and get your business. The point is, the Deposit Return Scheme does none of the above. It does exactly the opposite. It will cost you time and energy. And at best, you will break even in terms of money. But it could cost you money in a multitude of scenarios:

• you forget to bring the item back and instead put it in green bin at home
• you're out and about and it's easier to put an empty bottle/can in a bin that carry it around
• the bottle/can gets damaged for whatever reason
• if you buy bottles/cans as a gift, it's a tax you won't get back
• if you're visiting someone in hospital and buy them bottles/cans of drinks. Again, it's a tax you won't get back
• you're at a house party and bring your own cans. Realistically, you're not going to bring the empties home
• if the RVM is broken, it will cost you time, money and energy to come back again
• if you're housebound and get deliveries, it may not be possible to return empties.

It may not be much on each occasion, but over time it'll all add up. As one of the supermarket chains say, "Every little helps TAX".