Deposit return scheme (recycling)

FFS, if the plastics and cans are mixed that's going to require a whole additional cycle of processing to separate out and then crushing them prior to transportation to Limerick will make it even more complicated. I thought the idea of us bringing the cans and bottles was that they would be seperately sorted simplifying the recycling.

This whole thing needs a serious audit done of the resources going in to it against what was a simple process with the green bins that just needed a can and a bottle bin added at most.

Of course,keep things locked behind a NDA

The modern way!

Ah sure this sounds like a made up story!!! 😎

Well done and great work!

I was chatting to a friend in Aldi yesterday near the RVM machine, while there 2 ALDI staff members arrived with a hand pallet truck upon which was a large metal square box lined with a plastic bag, which they slid off to one side, then opened the machine and removed a similar lined metal box which was about 3/4 full with flattened cans & bottles all mixed together, and lifted it onto the pallet on the pallet truck and shoved in the empty box & closed the door on the machine again. They proceeded to the door on the right hand side of the RVM machine where you can put in the rejected cans/bottles and firstly picked up the cans/bottles that hadn’t landed in the bin inside the machine (appears to have been shoved back to far in the machine) and replaced that lined metal bin with an empty one.

Seems silly the the cans & bottles can’t be segregated to 2 separate bins within the RVM machine considering it can read a barcode it should be able to decide ‘left hand bin or right hand bin’. I can understand this with the rejects but not with the others.

When at the checkout, the manager was on the till and he was telling the people who were purchasing items with the return logo / deposit collected that those bottles were returnable which I thought was helpful.

I have been segregating all cans & bottles since 1st February (no deposit has been paid on them) to get the family into the habit of putting them into a shopping bag in the utility room but will most likely just put them into our recycling bin once 1st deposit is paid on something and start afresh with ones for RVM.

I always rinse everything going into the bag so no smell or spills to worry about (bit ocd that way)

Yes, each shop is responsible for fixing the machines. Have to sign up to a service contract which costs about 1k a year per machine.

Have yet to see anyone use or even go near these machines in a fairly substantial sized supermarket in my local town. I wonder what % of items will be recycled through these machines

I reckon the retailer wanted to tell the fool to eff off

The whole system seems to be working quite well from the consumer point of view. I also happened to purchase a four pack of an imported craft beer and noted I was charged for the deposit ( Tesco). When I looked at the cans there was no return logo and thought there is 60c I will never see again. Took them along with me anyway when bringing bottles to Lidl and machine took them no bother. €2.85 from returned bottles and cans. Deposit paid on the purchase on the same day €2.25

Is the €2.81 a typo as the deposits are .15 or .25?

Being a bit pedantic here and not knowing a lot about the actual recycling processing. Would I assume plastics at least are washed at some stage so why is the consumer being asked to wash before into the bin. A needless waste of water, no? And water we are told is a priceless commodity.

The cost benefit analysis on this is going to be fun in years to come. I wonder does it come under the remit of PAC seeing as it is a national scheme mandated by government.

There's very obviously a LOT of people/organisations making money out of this scheme, either directly or via anchillary requirements.

There's issues with people claiming back deposits which they have paid, for a number of reasons.

There are some retailers who are operating outside the Ts and Cs of the scheme (which is expected in my opinion)

There is no sign of any method of supporting people who get their groceries delivered.

There are cost increases that producers are applying to their products, up to ten percent, that are not the "deposit".

There are significant numbers of people (based on this thread) who will continue to use their recycle bin for some of the reasons mentioned above.

These are all verifiable facts and as such, one would have to ask, how likely people are to engage/contine to engage with the scheme bearing in mind all of these issues.

First go at bringing items back yesterday to a Lidl RVM.

Large selection of mainly cans and a few plastic bottles. Rejected a couple of 2.0 litre coke bottles, so I chucked them in the recycling bin on the way out. I think I had checked the bar code on them on the checker previously and thet were OK, I didn't have the initial receipt obviously so wasn't sure how to go about getting back the 25 cent for those.

Fairly painless experience, had a good few curious onlookers, looking to see the machine in operation. I was getting a bit paraniod about the amount of Bulmers cans going in 😁😁😁😁. Nearly forgot to hand the voucher to the guy on checkout when paying for my shopping.

Used an RVM for the first time yesterday outside my local ALDI, it's enclosed apart from the doorway. The stench of stale beer was incredible, the place is going to be full of wasps in the summer.

Complain to the place you bought it, there is no deposit on containers above 3 litres.

The places you shop must keep immense amounts of product on-hand.

My local Lidl has basically nothing without the logo now; ditto local Centra. Work canteen is the only place I'm still seeing most stuff without logo.