Lo schema di ritorno dei depositi ha visto oltre 1,8 miliardi di container, bottiglie e lattine riciclate

How much has recycling change overall though?

The majority of those were probably going in the green bin previously or being sorted out in centers epically the cans.

Need to create an app so people can scan their receipts so they don’t get lost.

How many EXTRA have been recycled due to this scheme?

Would love to see contactless repayments – tap my card or phone and receive the refund to my bank account instead of faffing about with receipts into the shop and getting cash back etc but I suppose retailers wouldn’t want to install such machines if they’d lose the customer coming in and spending the refund.

Now give us the machines that you don’t have to individually place them in 1 by 1 to speed up the process

Should do the same for vapes

And what about the cans with the cloned stickers

Great now work on making the receipts recyclable, some kind of app link up and wheelchair accessible machines.

Until there’s a transparent view of where unclaimed deposit money is going, I can’t praise this scheme, especially given this government’s track record with dodgy behaviour and corruption.

Last year alone, consumers were charged €66m in deposits they never got back, leaving the scheme with a €51m surplus. That’s over-funding by people who couldn’t return their containers whether because of mobility issues, rural access, or just being caught out at events like matches.

We’re told these surpluses are needed to “keep the scheme running,” but if that’s true, why are machines constantly broken or out of order? Most big supermarkets only have two machines, maybe three. In Germany, if machines are broken, the shop gets fined and logistics staff handle the bins, not the supermarket staff. That’s how you keep things working.

Also in Germany and Norway, unclaimed deposits are legally required to go back into environmental or community initiatives. If Ireland followed that model, I’d be much more inclined to support the scheme. Right now, it just feels like money disappearing into someone’s pocket while they say figures to the media.

“Bottles and cans, just clap your hands, Just clap your hands.”

It’s fantastic if true, but having worked with public bodies my concern is that the rise in recycling is due to a rise in “recorded” numbers because the methodology has changed and not because more is actually being recycled. Re-turn just became the goal post for metrics rather than each recycling bin provider, and added a cost to the consumer at a time when cost of living is affecting people, so it’s not unexpected they would come out with headline figures that most people won’t drill down into.

A better solution was possible that didn’t cost people, and allowed people to actually be rewarded a few cents profit rather than they’re own money, minus fuel to the supermarket. The machines even have the facility to pay direct to bNk account, like other countries. When this was being tested in Dunnes Stores prior to country wide rollout, no deposit was required and it had massive uptake.

Call it what it was, an excuse to set up and funnel public money legitimately to private individuals or organizations , with the PR spin of helping the environment, to say nothing of the littering of people pulling at bins in urban areas to get the bottles and the added cost of living pressure.