"Green" policies are destroying this country

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Deposit return scheme provokes the law of unintended consequences

Good afternoon,

Results from Coca-Cola’s bottling arm this week were a reminder that the deposit return scheme doesn’t only drive additional recycling of plastic bottles and cans, but can reduce demand for them in the first place.

The company said that sales volumes in Ireland fell by “low-single digits” in the first six months of the year, in contrast to a small bump in its global sales. This occurred as consumers “adjusted to the impact of the [deposit return scheme] launched in February”, Coca-Cola bottling arm said.

While not stipulating the actual percentage decline in sales here, it’s clearly only marginal, but nevertheless is being attributed directly to the deposit return scheme.

While Coca Cola HBC has said it is “encouraging” to see the deposit return scheme progressing in line with plans, it has previously complained that it is not fair for companies like it to be expected to fund the new deposit return scheme and pay for litter clean-up costs.

The news comes after new figures from Re-Turn, the company behind the scheme, showed that 347 million drinks containers have been returned since the scheme opened in October.

3.2 million containers were returned every single day in July, with 102 million returns made across that month alone.

But at the same time as the numbers using the scheme have rocketed, new issues have begun to emerge around public waste management in Dublin.

While seagulls used to be the number one issue for refuse interference for Dublin City Council, it is now members of the public pulling apart bin bags and emptying public bins to gather bottles and cans that now have a monetary value.

Thing have gotten so bad that Dublin City Council is now going to trial a new system for its public bins, where a “holder” is attached to the outside of the bins for people to put cans and bottles into so that those who want to collect them can do so more easily.

If it sounds a bit like a bin attached to a bin, that’s because it kind of is. And once these mini-bins are attached, what is the likelihood they too will overflow, at least temporarily, resulting in yet more collateral waste from the deposit return scheme?

It’s a reminder that in the realm of policy making, the law of unintended consequences remains as true as ever.

Thanks for reading,
Daniel Murray
Policy Editor

I know several people who now shop the other side of the border instead. My brother does a monthly run and picks up several crates of cans and bottles for all the family. I personally get 4x 18 packs of coke etc, 2x boxes of Guinness and a bottle or 3 of spirits. So, huge savings overall (18 cans from NI is €9, closer to €19 here and alcohol is significantly cheaper too). Bulk buying offsets the cost of the tolls and petrol and sure what's a little extra carbon emissions?

Of course it's reported as a usage reduction here, the exchequer loses a little VAT, Diageo lose their MUP windfall and I keep the green bin collectors happy. Maybe I should print a few labels and play ReTurn at their own game. Sure what's a little wasted paper?

Prime Time doing a piece on solar farms tonight

I'm surprised RTE airing a piece like this, with the negative tones from people in relation to these developments.

Living standards are already horrific for many many people. The only way to solve that even with keeping population stable is to reduce consumption and waste. Reduce, reuse, recycle. But that might affect your living standards.

People don't want to be "green" because it means they might have to share resources fairly and be a lot less greedy.

Alternatively you can go live on another planet with more resources. Elon and Jeff will be looking for volunteers, from their castles in the sky.

What a mean spirited family.

The problem there for Greens is that when you scratch under the skin you endup with someone who used to be a Pinko Leftie

Climate change is just the latest crusade they have latched onto now that Russian and Chinese “communism” has either collapsed and then reborn as oligarchic dystopia or in case of China turned into dystopian techno fascism

There’s also a bit of a religious streak, the power of the Church has declined, but the millennialist Armageddon type beliefs have not went away and found a natural habitat in the end of days narratives

And the sad part is that IMHO climate change is a problem, a problem that requires policies, but due to their Pinko Leftie origins they oppose science and technology so you endup with bizzare hate of anything nuclear and weird opposition to adapting and use of geo engineering

…well we ve been ignoring the warnings of fossil fuels usage for decades, thank god those warning were wrong!

…sorry to break it to you, but the green party have only played a minority role in governments, ffg have an exceptional talent of moving blame onto their partners, and this is exactly what theyve done here!

…theres no question the greens live in la la land, but theyre actually right about the use of fossil fuels, only problem is, nobody knows how to move off them, without potentially crashing our economies…..

yes i completely agree, we re dropping the ball in regards nuclear, it absolutely needs to be a part of our energy future, but this isnt totally the fault of the greens, as polices were implemented, post Chernobyl, by successive ff and fg governments, that completely prevents such as possibility, but of course the greens also played a part in helping implement these polices. its extremely important to realise how much power both ff and fg have had in regards policy implementation regarding our energy infrastructure, or lack of, a strong response to Chernobyl was inevitable, but since, nuclear tech has clearly developed heavily, significantly increasing nuclear safety, we urgently need to review these polices, or we could end up screwed.

we also need to be honest and realistic about nuclear, we clearly have no history in regards its use, so setting up such an industry would have astonishing costs, it would probably take many decades to truly payback, and it may in fact take many decades for us to truly experience its advantages.

therefore comparing the advantages to elements such as energy prices with countries that already have pre-existing nuclear is probably meaningless, as we d be starting with no base at all, and we d have to build an astonishing amount of infrastructure in order to have such an industry, which would take decades to even get a single reactor up and running

Some taxpayers have been paying for this horseshite for years in the form of fuel duties plus carbon based fuel duties, carbon based motor tax, carbon based vrt, etc plus the higher cost of living resulting from these so called environmental saving taxes.

The Govt must either have a massive war chest built up to deal with this bullshite fine or else have used the largesse to heavily invest in mitigation measures??

No just another excuse to fleece the same taxpayers that will be fleeced yet again to pay for this codology cause there's no option to the polluter pay principle you thickos

…its clearly obvious that modern political and economic ideologies are ultimately to blame here, which results in such policies, as issues are seen largely as the individual so the individual must pay, in taxation and in overall price, but the problem is clearly with our over consumption, and the entities that ultimately produce our goods and services effectively exonerated from any responsibility….

That’s nonsense, French and Finns don’t consume much more or less than us in Ireland

There very much is an ideologically driven failure of policy, green policies being driven and pushed by Green Party and likes of Eamon who are in key positions driving a plan which is neither costed nor been done anywhere else in world based on hope and loose emulation of Germanys failed Energiewende project