Deposit return scheme (recycling)

"The company is not intended to be profit-making, as the cost incurred by beverage suppliers when producing specially labelled cans and bottles is expected to be equal to the amount of uncollected deposits"

So DRS is a private company run by the beverage suppliers and they are taking the cost of labelling from us!!

Seriously what is this cost, how long does this cost last and why are we paying for it.

How many directors and how much are they getting?

Massive incentive. Used to stock take in a nightclub I worked in. The cost of the raw ingredients for a soft drink are pence. Mark up is massive.

I think nightclubs and pubs are slightly different and perhaps better equipped than a cafe having a fridge and some deliveries.

So I've mentioned here before that my local Lidl machines were great and I haven't had a problem. Well today is the opposite, both machines out of order and were still out of order an hour later.

Fecks sake

Exactly. Very cheap beer works in Germany, why aren’t we rolling that out?? Or Currywurst stands??

It can be messy.

I leave the caps on bottles.

In cans I stuff one piece of (new!) toilet roll, which I remove putting in machine and bin. Lot cheaper than binning a bag 4 life and I'd run out of paper bags pretty quick.

Which in theory makes the box unrecyclable as it's not clean.

So why in the name of Moses have they started linking the cap to the bottle if the cap needs to come off??

And then the EU make it law from 1st July that all drinks containers sold with twist on caps must have the cap permanently attached to the container which to me would mean complete contamination of all clear plastics being recycled. I think someone is taking the piss with us to be honest and seeing how long before we crack or start asking sensible questions to their madness.

This explains it.

Not everyone is happy.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/25/why-are-bottle-caps-attached-to-the-bottle-inside-the-eu-directive-causing-drink-spills-ev#:~:text=It%20is%20mandatory%20for%20all,tackle%20plastic%20waste%20in%20Europe.

…many of those countries implemented these policies during low inflation periods, we re now in a completely different period…..

The Re-Turn site recommends leaving the caps on. The internet tells me that this is the correct process these days, different from the past. The two materials get separated after shredding by placing them in water, where the lid material sinks and the bottle material floats.

"Do I have to remove the lid when returning my plastic bottle?

You can return your empty, undamaged plastic bottle with or without the lid. We recommend returning bottles with caps, because this will ensure that the cap is recycled, too. Also, if the bottle cap is still on, it is easier to preserve the shape of the bottle."

I bought a small cream and the lid stayed on as its there to be recycled as all in one rather than hunting for the top.

I use one of those green delivery trays you get with home delivery and stack the cans upright and bottles with caps on and never a mess as its usually full. I also had a small recycling bags for water bottles with tops on and no mess.

Having caps on i assume less mess for ourselves when recycling.

2 cans rejected non labelled with icon so green bin and no deposit charged.

No issues as of yet and happy so far

The machines are constantly out of order in Ennis where I live. Every time I've tried to use one in the past 2 weeks at multiple locations the machines have either been broken or full.

It's getting a bit silly

i love how some people are like "it will be 100% illegally against the law to sell a can/bottle after june 1st without the return logo. shops are obliged by this obligation and MUST follow it!"

like seriously, whats gonne happen 😂 someone will email re-turn to inform them & return will reply with a automatic email to say it's been forwarded to the relevant department? will yiz please get a grip😭

They will send the bottle police around to confiscate all illegal bottles and cans,it's a serious offence to dodge tax in this country,even the bottle tax.

Tough, your rubbish is part of you now.

You will bring it with it until one of these bins says yes. Or throw them in a bush, either way Re-Chit-Ching wins.

Obey the logo.

see DXHound’s post above - they get separated in process so perfectly ok to leave the annoyingly attached cap on

I used it again this morning. Two machines were free, the first machine refused to accept any bottles the first time and then gave a warning for unusual activity detected and shut down for a few minutes

The 2nd machine worked fine.

Obviously this is the machine that will get full faster, while the other machine causes nothing but frustration. Not a great experience. I'm guessing the bar code reader is all gunked up (which should have been expected given that there will be inevitable spills of sticky syrupy liquid all around the entrance to the conveyor belts ) and struggles to read from multiple angles

The stores are open 12+ hours per day and in most cases not overstaffed.

Someone has to be available at all times to tend to the RVMs whether it's a breakdown or just a full bin.

All the floor staff have set designated tasks to keep them busy during their shifts.

Of course the busier the shop the quicker the RVM will fill up and at the same time the floor staff will be distracted with other jobs.

The only solution is extra staff which the shop owners will want to avoid but something has to give and it shouldn't be the customer being unnecessarily discomodded.

Biggest payday Ive seen on here was 200 euro voucher from @BoardsBottler.

Note the majority of that was a stream of containers from their place of work if I recall correctly.

However we are a long way off what's going on in this video. He's crushing containers and heading to a bulk return centre to collect his winnings.

I doubt we'll see many people out looking for containers in Ireland due to:

- containers cant be crushed and must be good enough condition

- having to tour about trying to find a working RVM that doesnt sh!t itself half way through feeding containers in 1 by 1. No bulk return centres.

- requirement to queue up in store to get cashed out (Australia allow refund to bank account).

Nonsense.

I was thinking everyone who wants bank refunds gets a Re-Turn mobile app + account with IBAN already added to account. QR code displays on RVM screen. Scan QR code with phone camera. Money sent to bank. Done.

As @odyssey06 has already pointed out in Ireland vested interests always win out. Customers / public exist only to be milked for every penny.

So we are going to have to pay three times for the scheme? Once for the inconvenience, once for the increased bin charges and thirdly with increased store prices because of the extra staff needed to keep the rvm running.

While you are quite correct, that would be very easy to do 'at the front end' / user interface, we don't know how re-turn is set up at the back end, both technically speaking, but also to protect against fraud, etc. Key difference being that ther is no 'front end' today (no app), so it can be built, but the 'back end' is already built and not so easy to 'pivot' as such.

Consider the limitation we have today that a voucher from a store can only be used in that specific store. You cannot even use it in another branch, its location bound. Now just like they managed to set the scheme up to accept bottles bought in any store at any machine, re-turn could have been set itself up so that vouchers printed at any machine could have been redeemed as in any store. That flexibility in turn would have allowed cash to be redeemed in other ways (like on an app) and it would also have allowed for vouchers to be generated from machine locations that are not tied to a retail store (e.g. civic amenity, office blocks, schools, airports).

Instead re-turn, a brand new scheme remember, was, it seems, set up to be location limited, re-turn clearly believe that to be perfectly acceptable. I wonder if that is because there is an operational reason (like for example the retailer fee is paid or accounted for in their back end based on redeemed vouchers, and not units collected), or for a risk reason (like they would need a secure way and manage to 'issue' cash vouchers, and this would be way too much effort with no benefit to re-turn). Most likely it was down to a lack of imagination or any consideration of the end user (because of all of this benefits the end-user only).

None of this is unsurmountable, much of it would be as easy in fact as the front end - ticketing, voucher and gift card schemes amongst others have overcome these obstacles - I just don't think re-turn would have been planning for any such innovations and it may now be too late to change.