Deposit return scheme (recycling)

About a decade ago I lived abroad in a country that had a deposit return scheme, but also household waste was paid through normal taxation. In Ireland it really is a joke. Some places, you buy a bin tag in the shop which you put on your bin, other places, they just send you an invoice once a year. When the bin tag blows away in a gale, your bin doesnt get collected. So, you have to wait another week or two with rotting rubbish. And then they wonder why fly tipping is such an issue here.

If the green party took their head out of the clouds, they could make real major improvements to this country, and that should start with waste collection and disposal.

Don't understand your logic at all. The 60% will improve and the recovery rate staying the same would mean more is recycled.

Well that will be proven one way or the other but extremely unlikely recycling will not increase as a result

What does your question mean? I am saying recycling will most likely increase they said things would be the same time will tell

I think @Ray Palmer used a double negative there 'extremely unlikely / will not', i.e. extremely likely to increase.

Recycling was trending to increase anyway, and just because Re-turn may increase recycling at a faster rate does not necessarily prove or validate that re-turn was the only possible way to do that. I would advocate that we need to de-focus on recycling and focus on reuse, so I am not all that excited by an increase in recycling.

If anything, the adoption of these schemes across EU means that plastic will continue to be the preferred container type across Europe - all that investment in plastic production, bottling, recycling and not to mention the billions invested in RVMs across the continent is not going to be unwound too easily - plastic is going to be disposable-after-one-use for 100s of billions of items p.a. for another couple of decades.

From my perspective I have changed behavior so that I can completely avoid re-turn. This is overall for the better: I have reduced my single use plastic / aluminium to a minimum.

As I personally "decrease" recycling at my home; unfortunately I can't escape the fact that anything I do is going to cost me more than before in collection charges.

There are very few, I might even say that there are no incentives for consumers to do the right thing.

The coke zero barcode pre-scheme is different to that going into trade now. Same with Coca-Cola original.

because at the minimum it keeps it out of landfill and all the toxic leachate that it produces since the landfill goes anaerobic.

FYI, once you close a landfill, the LA has to look after it for 25 30 years due to this

Yes that is true, but returning cans to an RVM is not a job, and not something someone decides to do "for the state" either. There's no boss or no contract of employment either. it's cash in hand and revenue created via voluntary actions.

Also this scheme itself inconveniences the majority. This is the public being forced to pay the cost for the countries politics/political beliefs yet once again, this time its green related, and because EU put the wind up ireland and the irish members of state, for the country mucking around and not recycling properly or meeting any decent rates. And Thus a goal was set for ireland, and government had the wind put up it behind, and had to act, and thus the creation of these new laws and this return scheme was born

I was put any plastic containers or cans I use and place them in the recycling bin thats a few metres from my house.

Now, I'll have to wash out my plastic containers & cans, place them gently into a bag and store them somewhere within my house. When I choose to go to a shop, assuming I don't forget them, I'll need to stand and queue at an RVM, placing them individually into the machine and wait for my non-recycleable voucher that I then need to use in that specific shop or I can choose to queue up at the customer service desk to get cash that I personally, don't want to have on me anyway.

If any cans or bottles are not accepted, then I'm 25c down per container and now I need to carry them around the shop with me. Of course they are in the shopping bag that I brought with me to use for shopping so that's a bit of an annoyance.

Anyway, I'll drive home and unload my shopping. I'll then take out my non-accepted slightly crushed plastic bottles/cans, walk the few metres to my green bin, open it and place them inside. The circle of life.

I suppose I'll be happy I have a car because not having one would make the above that little more inconvenient.

Remind me again, based on our recycling statistics - am I in the minority that will have to go through the above?

In reality rather than imagined problem world:

• you don't need to wash bottles - just close the lid when they're empty. You probably don't need to wash cans either, unless you're concerned about a leak in to a bag
• there will rarely if ever be queues at RVMs.
• Machines are exceptionally quick
• Very few containers are going to be refused within a few months of now - once everything on sale is properly registered. Slightly crushed stuff does work; absolutely flattened doesn't.
• deposit on most containers is 15c not 25c

So why not put separate compartments in existing private recycle bins for plastic bottles and aluminium cans and why not make more publicly accessible recycle bins with similar compartments available?

Surely in reality they are far more practical and environmentally friendly solutions to the same problem?

But sure with this new scheme isn't there a while fleet of new recovery vehicles required with additional routes, staffing and maintenance requirements? Never mind the machines themselves and the additional carbon emissions needed to return this stuff to the machines? No talk of that?

Slowing down bin collection? Seriously versus the additional resources thrown at this DRS it's a drop in the ocean.

How would the second one be wildly ineffective? There are very very few public recycling bins and less still with compartmentalised collection.

Nothing else has been tried in Ireland or am I missing something.

• If I'm going to be storing empty cans of beer (for example) in my house, then yes I will be washing them. Otherwise they would smell.
• Rarely ever queues at RVM's? I suppose we can compare it to the bottle banks. Ever see more than two people at a bottle bank at one time?
• Machines are quick, people are slow. ATM's are quick - ever wait for an age for someone to complete a transaction?
• Fair point on few items being refused in the future. Problem is, anything that is refused = money lost.
• Fair enough on most on 15c for most containers.

You did miss a number of other points that I made (having to use voucher in a specific shop, exchanging for cash etc) but let's keep with the above for now.

Collection is allegedly at 95 percent already.....

Not every bin trucks needs to be modified...

Where has this been tried elsewhere and failed?

So this is the issue I have with the existing figures, that someone brought up a few posts back. No one really knows how many plastic bottles get collected as a percentage of what gets sold. Anyway, I suppose that is neither here nor there.

We have very very very few public recycle bins and still don't. I don't know how anyone can suggest that more of them wouldn't improve things when logic suggests that it would, particularly if they were put in good locations and well thought out.

As for the bin trucks, I don't believe it's as big an issue as millions upon millions spend on rvm machines and the infrastructure and human capital that goes with them.

And again, I have major concerns about the validity of any figures used before this scheme came in.