Deposit return scheme (recycling)

Public segregated bins don't get used properly. Take a look inside the ones in a shopping centre, train station or airport and you'll see that every entry is used as general waste.

Its performative and achieves nothing.

I'd be absolutely certain that multi section bin in the photo is emptied in to one single vault bin truck.

Because we have decades of proof of them not working here, from places here that have tried them.

People see a bin as a bin, they don't care to check if they're meant to use a specific side of it (or none at all)

Well those folks who are too lazy/ignorant/scummy/stupid (delete as appropriate) to use a segregated recycling bin certainly aren't going to make the effort to get their 15cent back from a recycling machine that is temperamental or doesn't work a lot of the time.

A lot of people wouldn't stop to pick up a 10c or 20c coin on the ground, they're not going to an effort to get it back on their bottles or cans, especially when they have a recycling bin right outside their front door that they already pay for.

this ^^^ has been on my mind since I found this thread a couple of days ago… we need to push the government to outlaw plastics and to build schemes that encourage people to use more sustainable ways of carrying drings, packaging food etc.

They also need to stop taxing people and saying it's somehow environmental… it's not, it's just tax.

I worked on developing a restaurant/deli concept recently and the client put in filter water taps for anyone to use to fill their own bottles… free to use for anyone, based on the principal that the losses in sales would be subsidised by a more discerning shopper who would appreciate the gesture and hopefully visit more and spend a bit more.

It's 100% this, as I said back in the 90's they had 4 bins in their kitchen in Frankfurt and it was an absolute revelation when we first got a recycling bin in the 00's!

That's a pretty poor excuse for not having such a system.

It's not an acceptable excuse when it comes to all manner of other matters. Do you hear people throwing their hands in the air over say using mobile phones whilst driving? No, you hear campaigns to get people not to do this.

You see the same thing at beauty spots. LAs and state bodies are very poor at even providing ordinary bins there, too much hassle and cost to empty.

They work in Germany because over time it became the norm. Simply saying that they don't work here is the wrong approach. Set up the segregated bins. Of course, you will get lots of people simply putting rubbish into any of the bins but over time their friends, family etc will start to push them to be more careful. It won't happen overnight, but the long-term change in culture is worth it.

This is why the rollout of this scheme is so maddening. All of these problems were not only easily foreseeable, other places like Germany had already been through them and found solutions.

They should have blitzed this from the start. All producers and retailers should have been forced to bring all stock up to compliance by the start date. Having some cans returnable and some not only makes the scheme seem crazy. Yes, you would have had an amount of returns bought before returned but take that as a cost to get the scheme going.

The machines should be serviced and maintained such that the level of downtime is a minimum. Train certain staff members to be the point of contact in each store, such that they can handle almost all customer issues. This would take resources of course but well worth it to ensure that the rollout was as painless as possible.

Have the machines future-proof from the start, ie with card/apple pay etc. payout. None of this voucher stuff, and having to queue up in the store to get your change. Leave that as an option, for there are many who don't use cards etc, but the entire retail industry has been pushing for cashless for years and yet they bring this in and we are back to printed vouchers and having to queue up for a refund!

Were consumer groups even involved in the process? Seems to me a lot of decisions have been taken which massively favour the producers and retailers and place all the responsibility and effort on the consumer.

So basically there are no new taxi licences available only wheelchair accessible taxi licences? That's only going to put pressures on new taxi drivers that we so desperately need. I accept this is probably a discussion for another thread which I will endeavor to find in due course

Sorry for the confusion. I use the term "recycled" because when the goods get collected by the recycling company they then go to recycling facilities, to be recycled. In the terms of this scheme a collected bottle or can will eventually be recycled, therefore in this instance "collected" is the exact same as "recycled"

You are correct however because in other contexts recycling and collecing are not the same thing. For example if I collect my child from school, I haven't recycled him from school

I hope this makes sense to you

In fairness, the early days of "recycling" meant shipping it all off to China, where God knows what happened to it. Now that avenue is closed, I think what happens is a bit more transparent and a fair amount is actually recycled. But, I'd be amazed if at times, significant chunks of "recycled" waste doesn't end up in an incinerator somewhere in Europe. All we as householders are doing is separating our waste, and at that only partially. We aren't recycling anything.

This is called the deposit return scheme. It's primary aim is to better measure the amount of "returned" items versus purchased items in order to reach an EU imposed ninety percent return rate.

This scheme does nothing to ensure all items are recycled nor does the scheme in any overall context have any concerns outside of return rates.

This is not a Reduce, Reuse or Recycle scheme - it is simply a return scheme.

These are simple facts.

Collected and Recycled are not the exact same.

I really question your stance on all of this.

You fail to mention what happens to the bottles and cans after collection?

But the producers and retailers, who have set up and are running this scheme, have no interest in reducing amount of containers or changing buying habits. They have no interest in making their products massively more expensive. 15c looks like its something, but it's small enough that very few consumers will be put off buying a product on that basis.

This is nothing more than performative action. Making it look like they are doing something while really just protecting themselves from likely government intervention and regulations that would require them to actually change.

They can now claim that Y amount is being collected, which will ignore that X amount was already collected via green bins. Any failure to reach the targets will then be blamed on lack of consumer engagement rather than looking at the core issue. That of the products being sold in the first place. So the fault is the consumer rather than the producer.

Like anyone believes that. Pic is lidl on aungier St, Always has one out of order

No it isn't.

We already had those other taxes.

This is Green Theatre, a bean counting exercise to make it look like we are doing something for the environment.