Deposit return scheme (recycling) - Part 2

Still haven't engaged with this scam since it launched, but then I had already accepted it as a glorified price increase/stealth taxation designed to make it as awkward as possible to avoid. The only ones winning are those collecting the interest on these "deposits".

As I mentioned though, I don't pay for a bin collection service either (all of my rubbish goes into the local landfill compactors for about a tenner per boot load - 8ish black bags) so I'm saving there as well.

Ultimately though, my time is more valuable to me than wandering the town with bags of rubbish to find a machine that might take it for what is ultimately maybe 15/20 quid a month, or the cost of a single takeaway including delivery.

What if you dont have a utility room? Or a car?

Anyway, I was shocked when browsing the fizzy drinks on tesco. 8 x 150ml cans of Coke is now 9.55 including the deposit. Thats 6.96 a litre. Meanwhile, 6 cans of beer (440ml) is 3.79 a litre.

Why is coke so expensive now? Oh yeah, the Sugar Sweetened Drinks Tax: https://www.revenue.ie/en/companies-and-charities/excise-and-licences/sugar-sweetened-drinks-tax/index.aspx

Oh let's completely overlook that 4 years ago 24 Diet Coke cans were €12 as standard, often down to €8 on sale. Now you can't even get the 24 pack anymore, the 18 pack is €17, only a euro cheaper than the full sugar versions which the smart among ye will immediately notice that the full sugar versions should be more than a euro more expensive due to the tax… And that's all before this re-scam charge. And people defending prices… ye are the reason this crap comes in and is just accepted. Suits ye and yours fine so feck everyone else. There's another thread on selfishness in the first page ye should post in…

FYI: Aldi selling the 18 packs for €10 presently, full sugar or diet/zero. I stocked up.

The solution to this particular problem is not to engage with it. Reduce your use of these types of containers and those that you do use fire them into your recycle bin.

Engagement with the system will have you tearing your hair out.

Should report yourself to Re-Turn and be promptly told "it's nothing to do with us, now stop bothering us while why count up the millions we're making"

They palmed off enforcement of that to the County Councils!

So no enforcement then, unless someone has upset the Council for other reasons.

Joke of a scheme being run here while Re-turn get paid a lot for very little.

There are a lot of ways to force them to either improve this scheme or abandon it. From outright boycott of products with deposit charged to little more time consuming but direct reduction of profit this "non-profit" organization is making like printing receipt after every single bottle or can you deposit in the machine. If enough people start doing this watch how fast they will implement some app or mobile wallet as they would not be able to keep up with changing rolls and servicing printers in machines. Also stores will push them towards this as cashiers will be swamped with hundreds of vouchers which need to be scanned one after another. Well, if we have to put bottles and cans one after another nearly perfectly alligned so code can be scanned why not to give them taste of their own medicine?

I have been depositing couple cans and bottles every morning on my way from work. Sometimes more sometimes less, I kept vouchers as I did not need anything from the store that time. Today I was paying for purchase and gave cashier about 10 vouchers and she rolled her eyes as she had to scan them one by one. Funny thing is that it was me who had to put cans in one by one she got it easy yet still, she did not like it. I do not want to make fuss for cashiers but if that is a way to make this unfit system to work better I can easily produce 200-300 receipts a week.

I don't have to make any special effort to align the bottles or cans a certain way. They all go through regardless of orientation.

Maybe you were born on Sunday. Or maybe you use different machine. Or maybe that machine is calibrated properly. I tried to deposit bottles in Lidl and 2 out of 3 were rejected 2-3x so I just packed them all and tried in Dunnes. Most of them went in on first try.

You need to realize that while you may never experience issues with your machines that does not mean that everything works perfectly for everyone else. Some posters here do have strange attitude, some sort of god complex when they think that anyone who complain about these machines must be stupid or something because they themselves never had any issue.

You can love this scheme as perhaps it gives you that fuzzy warm feeling that you are doing something to save the planet but for me and as it seems quite a lot of the people it is unnecessary exercise in stupidity mainly because most of the recyclables were recycled and recovered even before these green wonders came to existence. Even green bin waste was and still is being sorted out by refuse collecting companies.

Yes they can.

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2024/si/33/made/en/print

Thats a great point and would make things easier for people like me. The argument for the system is people throwing their empty bottle out of the car window. The majority of people who buy multi packs bring them home. Where they have a green bin. So by all means put the deposit on one off cans or bottles one might buy in a filling station, not the multi packs one buys in a shopping centre(or gets delivered from a shopping centre).

No doubt that would be a lot more convenient.

But you would need to show how that system would deliver the target of 90% collection by 2030 which is the aim of DRS.

Watching people lugging up bag full of cans from home is mental in my opinion. There has to be a middle ground

If I wasn't so far south, I'd be buying everything up north just to bypass this scam. However, once they inevitably increase the scam charge it may be worth the trip. I'd rather waste it on diesel than take part. Bought 10x18 packs in Aldi. €100 and €27 scam deposit. I also emailed the CCPC complaining that every store selling the 18 packs are breaking the sugar tax law. Not that I expect them to do anything in benefit of the consumer. The expected outcome if any action is taken is probably a price increase for the full sugar versions.

I also find it fitting that Coca-Cola have no email or complaint procedure.

No, I want the crowd who are supposed to monitor retailers to ensure they're not screwing us over, which they blatantly are, to do their job. And yes, the scam and the sugar tax are different, I was using it to point out that not only are retailers overcharging us for the 18 packs, they're also breaking the law regarding the sugar tax. Just seems funny that around the time the deposit scam came in, the 24 packs disappeared, as the 18 pack was to ensure the full sugar ones were the same cost as the 24 diet ones. Now they're only a euro cheaper than the full sugar, and the 24 pack has been dropped to 18 for no reason other than greed.

Fitting though that you'd rather blame me than the scammers... this is why they get away with it.

Received latest bill from our waste and recycling company. Gone up by €14 - 15% increase.

Thank you Ossian Smyth.

I tried it this morning. Didn't work in an aldi or dunnes machine.

Remember though. The bin men are raising prices for no reason. They are just robbing us. So we've been told on here at the start of July. Bin men = Bad men. Nothing to do with Ossian and the lads:

It works in Dunnes for me. I never tried Aldi. It also works in Tesco.

Unless of course they can no longer sustain the losses and are being fobbed off by the Minister.

The reports I read said that they were in negotiations with the Department, and that prices would have to be raised unless a plan could be agreed with the Department to compensate for the losses. Losses reported at €700,000 a month since Return was introduced, and instead the recyclables used to fund their operations.

And that article won't load for me.

So should we be asking is it strange that you have appear to have a subscription to Waste Recycling Materials website??? Bit of a random choice for a news article to cite.

I just saw your edit.

I suppose it's possible that discussions broke down and they are all going their own way but I think it's unlikely.

I think it would suit them better to stick together.

As I've posted here before it's my opinion that the consumer should not be on the hook for any compensation.

What do you expect them to do if the Minister is just fobbing them off?

And if the Minister is fobbing them off, it is he who has determined that the consumer will be on the hook for the compensation.

He can't pretend this lost revenue is some invention of the waste companies, when it is specified as one of the categories of funding for the Return scheme.

Whatever private company put up their charges, they must not be in the IWMA.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2024-07-10/23/ (10 July 2024).

"The Department is currently engaging with the Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) and other stakeholders such as REPAK – to quantify what substantive impact, if any, the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) will have on the waste collection system in Ireland over the longer term."