The deposit return scheme has been an absolute success. I haven’t seen a single returnable bottle or can along the Liffey or the canals after New Year’s Day. It’s genuinely made the city a nicer place to walk through.
Appreciate it’s a hassle to return bottles to the shop but it’s done a world of good for our green spaces. Very happy with the trade off.
I'd like a similar deposit on disposable vapes. There's certainly less litter around now that i think about it.
1000%, the way they handled the vape pricing recently was complete nonsense and the first thing I thought of was why not follow the return scheme for vapes too.
Because it wouldn't be profitable to recycle them. They should have left pricing alone and flat out banned the disposable yokes, and educated people on the dangers of vaping and dumping lithium batteries all over the shop
The batteries on them are rechargeable. It should be possible to, at the very least, switch out the cartridges and mouthpieces and recharge the batteries so they can be resold.
There's a guy in the UK who has a YouTube channel based around using the batteries to do stuff like build a power wall for his house and power an ebike.
In practice it doesn't really work, I'm still finding reusable vapes on the floor. They added a charging circuit and swappable cartridges but the whole unit is still so cheap, people just bin the whole thing.
Because of batteries. They can't be crushed. Need to be treated like electronics.
Add €1 cost to each vape which. Any shop selling vapes has to give you a euro when you hand one in. No need to crush them really
Did you know that the batteries in those bakes are rechargeable?
I did not actually. All the more reason to recycle them I suppose
Yeah, make it a couple of euro too
Agreed. Make a disposable vape carry a €2-3 returnable deposit at the very least, though I still think they should be banned completely. The non-refill ones obviously.
They got rid of the 30ml bottles so that created a lot more plastic waste as people obviously bought more 10ml. Then they increased the price of liquid but do nothing about the disposable ones that contain plastic and lithium.
Genuinely where are people properly disposing of them? Have a few now and I can't dump them, taking them apart seems like hassle... help?
Put them in any of the WEEE blue boxes, they usually have them in the big shops, defo Aldi. No need to dismantle. https://mywaste.ie/what-to-do-with-different-types-of-waste/item/e-cigarettes-e-cig-vapes/
Did not know this! Thanks!
Ok good shout. I wasn't sure people could do that since it's not just a battery it's the whole vape
I don't actually know tbh. The battery can be recycled but it's encased in plastic. They need to be banned ASAP. If I was you id buy a reusable one where you can just fill it up with liquid.
Ridiculously the recent price increase targeted the refillable vapes as opposed to the disposable vapes...
The government more than doubled the price of the bottles of refill, useless feckers.
That was an absolutely braindead decision by them. It only discourages people from using the liquids as it is not only more of a hassle but the price isn't really providing that much savings incentive now either as a bottle of vape oil is more expensive than the smaller vapes.
I know, I know. If anyone has any good recs for liquid thats the same as the pineapple ice lost mary let me know
Lost Mary sell eliquid. You can find it in most vape shops under the name Mary-liq
https://preview.redd.it/5tqnkizwxkbg1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e19ea6926dd6e3bf30f37eeba58ea17ebc3842d3
I'll be damned. Thank you.
i’m not sure now w the tax as i swapped from vaping to pouches but it was a LOT cheaper too. one of them bottles of juice is the equivalent of 5 standard lost mary 600 puff disposable vapes.
The Flexus pro from Aspire is a decent refillable vape with an all day battery btw. Costs around 28 euros, the coils cost 12.50 for 5. Recently bought for my Mum
The vape shops have to take them back. Hale were doing it I know at least.
That goes for any WEEE item. Like, places advertising that they'll take the old fridge away for free when you buy a new one are legally obligated to.
I think everyone forgot about that one since it came in.
I cleaned up my stretch of road over the weekend and there was loads of them thrown in the ditch. So thank you for being concerned with proper disposal. The amount of glass bottles along the road too was nuts. Are people drinking while driving or is it passengers?
I've often wondered that because I frequently find beer cans in the hedges on my road.
this is such a good idea people willa cutlly go out snd collect the vapes and dump them i know it be sbit more diffcult thsn lets say cans or bottles but it be good.
Disposable vapes should be put under single use plastic legislation
I thought theybwere banning them ?
But if they arent ,yeah a similar scheme should be in place .
They are being banned
I vape and I 100% support this , would be a great idea and it should be about a 10r a vape too
I spend a lot of time in rivers and lakes and it has been incredible the difference in plastic bottles . Any you find now are from before the return scheme.
There’s plenty of other pollution still but this is win.
You must have wrinkly fingers
He's a fish
No, their enemy: an otter
Madra uisce
Like a beavers ballsack
Nitrate return scheme could be a goer
That's an attack on rural Ireland according to, well you know the usual suspects who say farmers have a god given right to convert and use all the land for milk and beef production.
Well along the Blackwater recently, the mass fish and river-life death got narrowed down to a garage, creamery and a third company that wasn’t a farmer.
So it’s not always the favourite scapegoat. Ask the Anglers; whodunnit?
This is a straw man argument. The overall decline of our surface water quality over many years is primarily the result of eutrophication caused by nutrient pollution. This may not have caused the Blackwater fish kill, but is the main reason our inland waters are being degraded year on year. It's not all from farmers but a significant amount is from agricultural runoff.
I got confused for a moment since I live in Meath, and there's a river here called blackwater as well, and so I when I read this comment I wondered to myself that I would've heard of the problem, but turns out there's another blackwater river in Cork!
And Tyrone. And I’m sure I’ve passed another one somewhere else only I can’t remember where now. If a bog ran into it and had blackish water, Then the “Blackwater”, it got lol Same as our “Milltowns” and “Newmill’s”. Our ancestors through all their poetry and literature, Got lazy with the place names at times. lol
I have an idea: deposit return shopping trolleys!
So much effort. But how much change in total pollution? The blame needs to be on producers.
There are plenty of requirements and regulations coming down the line for packaging soon.
I think the biggest problem the world is facing right now, is that if we pretend that everyone got the message and have been reducing, reusing, recycling and walking and cycling instead of driving, any gains we have made will probably be wiped out by AI datacenters.
After the responsible companies fail to show a return on investment and sac their AI divisions, the datacenters will remain dormant until the new owners dismantle them.
Louder for the deniers at the back.
Yes totally , but by seeing the effect it helps that to become more of a reality
it's kind of a sad take that cleaning up after yourself is "so much effort" and not worth it unless it also stops total pollution...
Thing is, the deposit return scheme actually slowed sales, at least for Coca-Cola. There's no way to impact producers without impacting consumers.
Did it?!
https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-41451802.html
From the horses mouth.
Yes blame the deposit return scheme, not the price increases and reduction in promotional activity and discount levels, €4 for a 2 litre of coke in Tesco or 2 for €6, they took the opportunity of the introduction of DRS to ramp up prices, because they expected a fall off in demand with DRS, and they created a bigger fall off in demand, but it's all good because they can just blame the DRS.
Round near me folks still chuck their cans and bottles. I'm sure it's made a difference but it hasn't solved the problem
Some people shit themselves , doesn’t mean we all give up using toilets .
Just need to ditch the single can machines for ones that can accept batches.
Yeah definitely,they should have been standardised from the start, my local shops one is god awful and breaks near daily,sometimes multiple times a day (i was chatting with staff about it when it broke on me lol)
Most places do not have the space for the bulk machines.
The ones I've seen online are about 4m long.
You essentially need a building for it.
That would be a good next step. It would help when people are bringing multiple bags full of bottles and cans. Or, as I saw this weekend, a wheelie bin full of cans and bottles.
Saw 2 guys trying to return a box of cans - but they had crushed them flat
Much cursing ensued
I can make you a millionaire, just invent a bicycle pump attachment to inflate crushed cans.
In Germany, that’s the norm, but they have standardised crates, which come with their own deposit and it’s only for bottles, canned beer being very rare in Germany. There may be a reason it’s more tricky to implement for cans than bottles and maybe with Ireland having more canned beer, it’s less practical.
Still, in Germany, you rarely see people use the crates even with big returns. As long as the conveyor belt runs constantly with a quick scan time, individual returns are fine imo. It’s only slow if it’s taking more than like a second to scan and accept the can, but that’s a solved problem.
How about a 10 euro deposit on the nitrous oxide cans
I could quit my job and just collect those with the amount left around my area
We put it all onto christmas saving cards. Got 200 for Christmas this time around, my husbands takes them out of the recycling bins in work as so many just throw them in the recycling still and he bundles it all together with our ones on the card and I go buy his staff treats for over the Christmas period with it. We have done it the last 2 years and Christmas dinner is sorted for us.
I started doing that, then lost the gift card. Thankfully some kind person handed it in and I got it back. After that I started just putting the money into a tin at home. Counted it the other day €130 in it so I'll put that off our holiday.
Ah no that would have me ina panic. If helps with lidl's gift cards you can instead put the deposit onto their app now. Im not sure about the time limit to use them though as I haven't tried it yet.
I still go up the north to buy cheap booze and throw the non return cans around our green spaces
The holy grail is when you find cans up North with the return logo on em
I travel in Europe quite often and it gives me the strangest sense of pride to discover cans / bottles with the Return logo on them in foreign lands. It’s not often and usually on “international” cans (I.e same labelling for all markets) but still.
The water in a pack in the Spar. Often on offer at twelve bottles for about three pounds.
Enjoy it while you can.
They're getting a similar return scheme next year.
Will there be a crossover you think? As in NI cans recyclable here and vice versa
You'd expect so, but given the sheer incompetence of both our government and theirs I don't see an all- island deposit return scheme happening any time soon.
Aye I'd be afraid of that happening
I'm sure the Unionists would be quick to shut down any such sensible cross-border scheme
if the exchange rate is good....
https://youtu.be/Ai84Jwgljbg
Imagine whole smuggling operations starting up because the exchange rate favors returning them here or there lol.
warehouses filled to the brim waiting for their moment watching a Bloomberg terminal for the price to make it worthwhile.
Print out labels with Irish barcode. Works a treat.
Doing gods work, keep it up!
Nah, they need way more machines outside the busy shops and way better servicing/emptying.
It has reduced litter . I live by a venue and used to see it littered with cans and bottles , I can honestly say it’s down probably 60% . HOWEVER the machines are absolutely crap , and the fact that my Dunnes only has 1 machine is terrible . I just HATE queuing up being someone with a 747 sized bag . I used to ALWAYS recycle my cans and bottles but now it is a hassle and time waste. Overall I support the scheme but improvements are needed
i suggest to go to a different shop. all shops in my little town have two machines.
I'm one of the people that 'save up' a good bunch before I go to deposit but at least then I have the decency to travel out of my way to one of the multi-deposit machines (whatever they are called).
I say decency but what I mean is laziness, cause there's a snowballs chance in hell I'll stand and feed one item at a time when I have 3-4 bag fulls!
It's working
Some people will moan anyway
Same as when the plastic bag tax came in and suddenly the countryside wasn't covered with plastic bags
I was the trolley collector in Tesco when the plastic bag tax came in. Became a much more pleasant job overnight.
Its a great model, a shame the machines are so finicky, I like the bulk machines so hoping more of those appear.
I'm interested to hear the input of people that manage them, the staff in the shops that have to unclog them and everything. My hope is they're not a big impact to folks
The machines drive me nuts. I’m all for the scheme but they need machines that are quicker or can take more than one bottle at a time or aren’t constantly broken. There’s ALWAYS a queue.
The people need to be quicker. So many of them wait until the can/bottle is discarded and the amount is added to their total. You can feed the bottles fairly quickly but nobody does that. Most people look at them like they're looking at the last bit Irish coast when shipping off to America.
I can’t believe more offices & workplaces aren’t doing ReTurn for charity.
I set it up in my section when I saw the porters in CUMH had been doing it for their in-house charity. Ours is only a small work group, but I do a donation of €25 or so a few times a year to charities we nominate between ourselves.
I don’t know if it’s still ongoing but ATU Sligo had done this with spaces to leave empty bottles and they would be used for charity. I think they raised maybe 2k with returned bottles
I seen a few teenage lads picking bottles up from the ditch and surrounding area in a local park 😆
Absolutely. I was in London between Christmas and New Year and the difference was noticeable. It's a huge success. Next tweak is to tap your card when finished to get the money straight to your bank, rather than as a voucher.
Next step is to unify the return scheme with all the different ones within the EU. One scheme with the same packaging and returned in any EU country.
Is cross- border can purchases really a significant factor?
It would make it much easier for companies particularly small ones if they could just use one version of the can/bottle for the entire EU.
That makes more sense.
Now that you mention it, glass bottles in Belgium often have different instructions for returns for Belgium, France, Luxembourg, etc. So it seems they are doing this already, to some extent
Moreso for the continent.
But for us, airport travel in and out, and other EU citizens going home.
Business will benefit not having to package it differently in different nations. This goes for other tags and regulations too. EU should harmonize itself.
I'd like the fee to be waived in sit down restaurants. It's annoying to pay 15 cent on a can when you are just getting a sandwich in O Briens. Let them collect and recycle in house.
It highlights how much poverty is in Ireland. I’m amazed to see people dealing with the filth and social stigma of rooting through bins for such a small return. I admire those people but they shouldn’t be in that position.
The deposit return scheme buys me my Xmas dinner at the end of the year, throw it all onto a gift card leaves one less expense to worry about.
Same with us. We had over 150e on our Aldi card this December.
I like it.
I live on street around Dublin City centre, and everyday I find non desirables digging through my bins outside and everytime I ask them to stop I get aggressively told to F off. So all of that is a downside in my eye
Some people leave the recyclable bits in a box next to their bins which cuts down the digging drastically
What's worse is there nothing in our bins, we collect them all ourselves in the house.
So instead they're just digging through, making a mess with nothing to take
I lived in Sweden in 2006 for 9mo, and ended up marrying a Scandinavian girl. Not only does everyone who doesn’t want to throw money away recycle religiously, but those down on their luck, homeless etc, also go and collect litter and cash it out. Net result is cleaner streets (and a fair amount of binhokers)
Side point that they also do glass bottles over there can you imagine I’d be €50 a month better off from the wife’s wine bottles and not have to drag em round SuperValu just cos the recycling companies can’t process or sell glass cheaply enough to make it worth their while to collect it ffs
Same in Canada. During the summer, you’d get tons of people drinking cans in the parks and you’d no sooner have the can finished than some elderly Asian woman has it put into her bag of empties.
They really need to start rolling out the bulk RVM machines to every place around the country, you can dump the whole bag in at once and the machine does the rest...
https://re-turn.ie/now-irish-recyclers-can-empty-an-entire-bag-of-drink-containers-in-seconds-introducing-tomra-r1/
I do 99% of my can drinking in my house and Id just like a way that dumping them all in my green bin still made sense?
And i don't have to pay an extra 15 cent on what i buy. I recycled anyways, but because others needed an incentive, I get punished.
This. Not the popular Reddit opinion of course. I personally love having to put aside extra space to keep my pristine collection of used beer cans in the house. I wasn’t planning to do anything with that acre of living space anyway.
It’s a shame people who recycled anyway have to go through all the hassle just to stop people littering. But hey that’s life I guess.
Take a stroll on Thomas Street, Dublin. Shops leave their rubbish bags for collection,which gwet ripped apart and strewn everywhere by people looking for bottles and cans.
The whole waste collection in Dublin needs rethought. Grafton Street is just a waste collection facility by evening. Surely there’s a better way than mixing tourists with bin bags.
Was Dublin worse beforehand? I only moved here last year and I find it's an incredibly dirty city and couldn't imagine it being worse. My impression is that it probably contributes more to general littering with people going through bins and bin bags looking for cans.
I can’t believe no one has said this. I’m from here but live away often - it’s first thing I noticed was the gypsies and some homeless people pulling all the rubbish out of bins onto ground to scavenge for cans - surely someone else is noticing this!?
Would love to see something similar for general rubbish. Not sure how that could work but the difference it could make to cleanliness of the streets
I thought you were going to say "There's a grand stretch in the evenings"
Fast Gas return scheme next please.
I've only been in Ireland a year, so the deposit scheme's been here since before me, but I made a couple of trips to England—London, Manchester, Birmingham—and you can really tell the difference it makes to have the deposit scheme in place! So many bottles and cans lying around that I know wouldn't have been there in Ireland.
I was sceptical, but by fuck, it’s a big environmental uplift.
I would’ve loved if they had of done a re-turn card similar to a leap card where ya drop it in the holder return all your cans and it deposits the amount onto your re-turn card and then ya can just scan that at the till. Would make it a lot easier to keep tabs off the money rather than just receipts or even keep adding it up for a big shop like many do for Christmas etc
You can add them to your Lidl loyalty card, I find it great as I inevitably ended up with a load of ~€1 vouchers for different stores in the bottom of my handbag.
But give me a return bin where it comes off my bin bill 😩
I’m not opposed to it but it’s mad inconvenient- and I’ve lost like 20 euro in recipes so far
Eh not for me, ive seen more rubbish as people rifle through bags in connolly station and around the 5 lamps area... it was bad now its 10x worse
What was happening to the plastic bottles that I used to put in my recycling bin? We pay private companies and trust them to recycle them properly. I used to be that person who was pedantic about the bins. Since the return scheme came in I don’t care. I reckon loads of it doesn’t get recycled properly now.
Success? What about the 66 million euro unclaimed by people not returning bottles?
I don't return mine I'm a carer and don't go to shops. I order online. Hence they go in the green bin. When I lived abroad, the supermarket delivery guys took them back
That’s as intended.
Because the homeless people go collect them and turn them in for money...
Person on a bike ride past me this morning layden down with mangy bin bags full of them.
So it's not all to do with responsibile purchasers.
That's sort of the idea behind it as well though - it creates another micro economic benefit. Go to countries that have had this scheme for years like Germany and you'll see the same thing.
Should have collected the cans in Brown Thomas bags. That'd make us all feel better wouldn't it.
I’m glad the guy with the mangy bags gets paid for cleaning up the city. Scheme working as intended.
Get this in Limerick too, bins emptied on to the floor for a few cans. Dublin council were trialling the racks that German bins have for glass bottles, just buy 10,000 of them for the major cities and spare us the mess
I've not seen mess left behind up here tbh, I've seen people routing in the bins but they put the stuff back in they don't need
Live in Limerick myself and have people going through my bins on a weekly basis. It's a pain in the hole. 90% of the time they make no mess, the rest they just pull stuff out of the bin onto the ground. Worst I had was a fella ripping open my general waste bags into the recycling bin to look for bottles and cans
So now the homeless guy is cleaning the streets to make money instead of steal from shops?
And youre still complaining
Still, it keeps the streets clean, and that was the goal, start least if feel so.
Although it also makes those more desperate just destroy some bags worse than seagulls.
Its not just homeless but those on low income, in countries where these systems are more established there is no rummaging in bins people leave it where its easily accessible and consider people who collect a service and job.
Outcome is good and the buyer effectively pays the 15c to whoever collects it.
Meanwhile here in Amsterdam it has made the city a giant garbage bin.
If it makes you feel better, our supermarket entrances now smell of beer dregs.
I thought that's what all supermarket entrances were meant to smell like.
Would've been nice if the consumer didn't foot the bill by them increasing the price of all drinks in response to it becoming a thing but we take small victories where we can get them environmentally I suppose
It only increases the price if you don't bring the bottles/cans back. How would you have subsidized it? By taking money from environmental/healthcare/education/transport etc. budgets?
Seems fine but I completely ignore it. I don't buy anything in plastic bottles and the few beer cans I do buy each month just go in my recycling bin. I can't be bothered queuing for ages behind people with huge bags filled with hundreds of red bull cans just to get back about 2 euro.
The quantity of energy drinks and soft drinks that some people consume is astonishing though.
Reduce reuse recycle. You're buying less of these things so it's working.
My buying habits haven't changed at all really. I've never really liked soft drinks and I use reusable water bottles and have done for years. Hopefully it encourages others to buy less though, and it should also mean that a higher % of this stuff actually gets recycled rather than going to landfill.
my mam got her whole christmas shopping €300 out of them return bottles ! its been such a great scheme
Honestly I was really sceptical at first, like who makes these machines and knows a TD but they are fantastic. The only downside if you can call it that is how it highlights how very little else gets properly recycled apparently.
Now do coffee cups
I live near a walking spot and theres still the same amount of cans around... the people who litter dont care about 15c
Except that we've a bin diving culture now pretty much. I saw a roma kid not even 10 years old diving bins with his mother a week or so back.
I used to recycle all my cans and bottles. Now the ones the machine doesn't accept. I throw in the regular garbage bin.
Appreciate your opinion with it but I see it as an absolute nightmare
Literally a nightmare. I wake up in a cold sweat most nights thinking about the black bin bag of bottles in my downstairs press that I have to empty once a month. Thinking of seeing a psychiatrist.
Don't bother mate. You can do what tons do here and start a new thread about how bad it is...
I'll just drop back these three bottles I have.
Oh.
The two people in the queue have four black bags apiece. Fml
Don’t waste your time for pittance and three bottles…obviously
Must be nice if this is considered a nightmare
Look one time I rocked up to Dunnes with my bag full of bottles and the machine was out of order and I had to do a walk of shame back to the car.
I haven't shown my face in public since and the bottles just keep piling up in my home like a hoarder
I'm awaiting the day I get trapped under empty bottles of ginger ale and it's the end of me.
As nightmares go that sounds like a pretty fuckin tame one to be fair.
I just continue to put them in the recycling bin and couldn't give a fuck
You must live rhe cushtiest life in ireland
Are we still shipping out all the bottles to another country though?
Right now, yes, the PET pellets are exported out of the country because we currently have no facility that can handle them on this island.
That's one of the first big things Re-Turn will be doing with their surplus.
Great success, I love seeing civic minded people helpfully break into the letterbox bins in Dublin to empty them of bottles and cans
Still can’t help but feel that as someone who has always recycled and never littered, it’s added an unnecessary chore to my life that’s also lining some cunts pocket. But yeah, silver linings and all that I suppose.
I have a very big problem with the government creating a new task for me when the problem could have been solved with investment in infrastructure and plant machinery. I also query the moralistic application of the law to soda and juice bottles and leaving the dairy industry to do whatever it likes, when dairy has a viable alternative in paper cartons.
I agree. I simply don't have space to be storing bottles/cans but I also don't have time to be drip feeding returning them and queuing twice. And I already pay for a Green bin.
I would guess that plastic milk containers lying around as litter were nowhere near as problematic as other drinks bottles. It's not something I would have identified as a serious litter problem. You could argue that they are the same and should pay the same deposit but they don't turn up as relatively equal amounts of litter on our streets.
Litter was not the reason for the system, it was the inability to separate the bottles out from other recyclable waste
So why are we using the machines for cans as well?
Try going during the summer. It wasn't working last summer.
I come from a part of the country where that wasn't a big problem, but we still get taxed. And there's still no investment in bins to tackle rubish around our towns.
If they just put bins along the river and emptied those bins before they overflowed that might have worked...but we'll never know because Dublin city council and the government have never done that.
Instead they introduce a new tax on people and give millions away to private companies and waste a lot of peoples time.
I live near a small park with bins that were never full. Every Saturday and Sunday during the summer, the park used to be full of cans and bottles from the night before. I agree that DCC needs to provide more bins and make sure they're emptied before they overflow, but that's only ever going to be a small part of the solution because a lot of people won't bother using the bins even when they're right there.
It's only a tax if you don't return them.
That’s still a tax on labour and effort
And I would like to add that the plastic bag tax has been a disaster.
Shops should be obliged to provide paper bags or something, the amount of heavy plastic ones I have in the house is a joke.
You need to cater somewhat for gobshites that forget to put a bag in the car.
They do carter for you, catering comes at a price though. Thays part of the point of it all.
Maybe take bags with you when you're going shopping? Not rocket science.
I still see plenty of rubbish on the streets in town and even some individuals clearing out the bins to get at the plastic bottles. The rubbish they pull out of the bin, they dump on the ground and walk away with the bottles they picked.
Those who continue to complain about the system are those who feel that their time is worth far more than helping to create a reliable recycling chain.
You end up going to the shop anyway, why is saving your plastic bottles and aluminium cans to bring them back in the same way as we already do with glass bottles apparently a step too far?
One complaint I have is that all those schemes are very car centric, throwing glass is even more of a pain tbh. There should be far more glass banks to cater to older folks or anyone who doesn't drive. At least plastic bottles are lighter to carry around, but they should ensure that smaller machines are working too. I live close to a Fresh and the machine is constantly broken, and there's no other machine in a 3km radius. Also, imo this shouldn't be run as a for profit enterprise (if that's so), any money should be reinvested in improvements or other recycling-related initiatives.
The waste company I'm on has a glass bin that goes at the same time as the recycling now. I think that's becoming more common.
Because I already had a perfectly fine working green bin and now I need to do all this busywork for nothing or say goodbye to my money. It's my money and it's my time. I need to part with one of the two. I'm punished either way and I did absolutely nothing wrong to deserve it.
There's a large part of the country in the same boat, myself included. Our household already had a recycle bin and everyone was using it no problem. The return scheme is great in that it does work but it's just a fact that those who were already recycling at home are now punished by having to queue up and do it in-store or else pay a literal cost.
The two things I personally don't like about the return scheme is 1) The monetary deposit. People shouldn't have to pay for this, they should have done it some other way. 2) There was zero thought given to those who were already recycling and are now punished by having to waste time/money on something they were already doing.
Because I only ever have about 10 beer cans and I can't be bothered queuing for ages behind someone returning 500 cans of monster just to get back a few euro. My time is worth more to me so I just throw them in my recycling bin with everything else. It's a good scheme I'm not against it at all. Must be a total PITA for the energy drink junkies though.
One thing I've noticed (which is great) is some kids going around with plastic bags filling up on empty cans/bottles picking up the litter. Great way for them to make a bit of change for the shop!
I agree somewhat.
It does seem to be working but just like the ridiculous plastic bag levy, it puts the onus on the individual vs the companies.
Also, why the fuck weren't the machines installed next to the countless bottle and clothing return stations we already have? Or move the bottle back to where the machines are?
Basically, it's yet another task I need to do in busy weekends with kids and all other life stresses.
Me personally, I have about 4 garbage bags full of em cause I could t be assed going there.
Maybe it's a me problem. Anyone else?
RVM machines need an accessible power source. And a person to empty it or unclog it. It’s why it’s within a shop.
Bottle bins neither need a power source or a person on hand to unclog it. Also, bottle banks need to be accessible to the crane trucks
The scheme is still a huge waste of money, with understandable anecdotal notes of less pollution seen around the numbers end of year indicate pollution hasn't changed much and the money being lost by the people nmis somewhere in the millions and its not as a tax so its not going back to the people. There's a long way to go but the DRS is imo not doing the country good
I just looked through my online orders. I spend about €100 a month on deposits, going straight to green bin. I'm a carer and my special needs child will only drink certain drinks. I don't do in person shopping. When I lived abroad, I could return to the supermarket delivery guys. It's definitely a tax on me
You go through 600 bottles a month!?