Deposit return scheme (recycling) - Part 2

Genuine question, but why is it plausible they are most likely doing the right thing?

In my eyes, they have not done a single thing right with this since the beginning.

The announcement, the implementation, the PR, the cost increases, the expectant attitude, the usurping of the actual waste companies on material, being shady with numbers, being shady with salaries, being patronising whenever in the media, deleting negative social media comments, refusing to respond to enquiries or dismissing them then outright lying about that fact on radio by telling us to get in touch and they'll assist, the reduction of choice as some products removed from sale, the list of things not done right is quite long.

But for me its the hugely negative environmental impact and the fact that they quite openly couldn't give a sh*t about housebound or disabled people that really irks.

And every single thing they've done wrong, with incorrect charges at the beginning, bottles not being read etc, is being paid for by money stolen directly from the public. During a cost of living crisis.

Yes, i do believe they could risk it, because time and time again we have seen in this country that even when you get caught, at the right level, there will be no consequences.

Look at the Rte thread for a perfect example, gross mismanagement, horrible behaviour, and rewarded with an even bigger bag of public money.

The difference here is people are asking questions now rather than waiting twenty years for an expose in a newspaper because we are absolutely sick of being fleeced for absolutely everything.

Ten years ago we all believed that recyclables we put in our green bin were being recycled, but lo and behold much of it was being incinerated. Its only right that Re-Turn are absolutely transparent in the wake of that.

The government could have sorted this years ago and didn't, and now we're paying for it by being beholden to a third party that has made an absolute hames of every single aspect.

Asian countries have said they do not want any more of it,clothing included.

The manufacturers of products generate the plastic.Irish consumers cannot dictate the wrapping.Just my opinion.

But what they do have is not recyclate. As far as we know for the plastics they collect they truck everything to Limerick where it is compressed and baled.

Material is not separated (bottles still contain cap, cap ring and label which are made from different plastics and cant be recycled together) and it is not separated by colour which is also desirable if you want to maximize revenue. Perhaps they are not concerned about is since they do have quite a lot of our money to play with plus aluminum windfall.

Is this the baling factory in Limerick?

https://www.lpp.ie/

At the moment their videos show baling up and loading into lorries. Plenty of verbage about how their bales of plastic are "recycle ready" but no info on where it goes or what happens to it.

They do say they have plans to build a pellet producing plant in future which is encouraging. Ive seen these pellets being used for making fishing nets in my locality. However if that is part of the plan for our deposits why not just come out and say it and give a timeframe?

Something tells me Re-Turn dont want to be accountable on timeframe or how the deposit fund is managed. There'll be plenty at the trough looking for their share first.

Apologies, I should have said recyclables.

Thanks for the correction.

The rest of my post stands.

People could stop buying stuff in plastic but it's not easy.

A large part of the supermarket shopping model depends on single use plastic.

It is problematic from an environmental standpoint but delivers advantages in convenience and food hygiene.

So yesterday I went to my local Aldi with my bag of cans and despite both machines being operational, it was very difficult to make a return for a completely different reason - wasps all over the place! One of my cans was rejected which the wasps took a liking too and getting it out of the machine was tricky without getting stung. Retailers should really come up with a solution for this (maybe a wasp nest decoy) even if the problem is only seasonal.

There is not much of a management of single use plastics. There is company recently set up which is designed in a way it can never fail no matter what they do. Curiously nobody seems to know how they actually "manage" single use plastics since they refuse to say.

To compare us with third world is rather lazy attempt to pretend we are much better in managing the waste. You seems to not to be aware that EU collect only about a third of single use plastic waste and half of that is being exported to said third world countries. Therefore a lot of that pollution you attribute to poor management in third world countries is actually our waste we dumped in their backyard. There is an estimate that that illegal exportation is about the same volume of the legal one if not more.

In other words we are currently "managing" plastic waste in a fashion that:

-2/3 of our plastic waste is ending up in landfill, incinerator and illegal export

-1/6th is being legally exported

-1/6th is recycled and material recovered

You can check the sticker barcode here -

https://re-turn.ie/consumer/

Where did you buy it ?

A bit of a tangent, but plastic is an interesting one, environmentally, because it is very lightweight, relatively strong, and doesn't take up a lot of space. The square tetrapacks are even better for stacking - so if you're transporting a lorry load of bottles, you'll use far less CO2 in shipping costs by shipping plastic cubes rather than glass bottles. As with the scheme, and many other things in life, there are all sorts of unintended consequences that could, and should be considered when trying to determine government policies..

Of course, plastic obviously takes forever to biodegrade, and without it I wouldn't be picking it up off the beach all the time… :(

There is no proof they are not being recycled

I hope the cleanup got a bit of money for the charities.

https://re-turn.ie/aviva-stadium-and-levy-ireland-announce-return-for-children-support-from-aer-lingus-football-classic-match/

Whoever is importing it from Poland will have paid to have it included in DRS as required by legislation.

Sure.

But if that company which is so invested in recycling and recovery really recycling them they would be proudly declaring it everywhere.

Since they point blank refuse to disclose where plastic waste ends up Occam's razor suggests that the best and fastest way to get rid of it is in a Poolberg.

Did you notice the Not for EU labels?

Home Bargains is the best value NI shop I like to frequent.

😅

I know. I tried those and every other under the sun. It resulted in him not touching it. I said let him be, hunger will teach him but to no avail. Even if he ate some he vomited it out after while. Sheba pouches are the only thing he eats and even those have to be fine flakes variety as other type even though it is the same brand ends up on various places in neat stinky piles. There is no worse feeling like stepping in a pile of cat vomit when you go to WC in the night.

So that particular type is 26-28 euro for 40 pouches multipack in Dunnes or few pet shops and for same reason only 15£ in the North. I know it is expensive and while he is driving me nuts I have no heart to get rid of him.

That show you how well thought out plan we implemented. A lot of soft drinks are made in NI and company do not care. They are shooting themselfes in a foot by selling marked stuff up North as people in NI may start collecting them to cash in when they pop in South. It is like free money for them. I suppose that rescam do not care either as it seems a lot of people simply do not claim deposit back which most likely was the plan all along.

On a cat side note, our eats dry food too those whiskas bags which are about 10e here and we got few for 5£ in NI too.

Halloween should be interesting. There will be a lot of p!ssed off teens with RVM scores to settle.

I wonder what happens if you put a firework into an RVM.