I wonder if those running the country realise how much the general public hates Re-turn.
We’re constantly told what a huge success it is, and how everyone thinks it’s great, but in the real world, there is a widespread antipathy towards the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS).
I rage against the Reverse Vending Machine. I cannot bear this hare-brained, pointless, counterproductive system that has been foisted upon us. It is the stupidest thing ever introduced in Ireland.
Those who critique it are often unfairly put in a convenient anti-environment box. Not so – I think it’s quite the opposite.
Broadcaster and satirist Oliver Callan has said of it: “Nothing makes me want to go mad as hell quite like Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme nightmare… a recycling disaster implemented with the usual Irish botchedness.”
The CEO of Dublin City Council Richard Shakespeare told how Re-turn bin-scavenging has left the capital “like a bomb site” and now we hear it’s costing Dublin City Council €500,000 a year to clean it.
Medical experts this week called for the introduction of infection-control measures around it, saying it’s a public health hazard.
I’m inherently a 1990s hippie, into natural living and zero-waste and looking after this planet while we’re on it.
In my view, anyone sincere about this issue – not pharisaical – knows Re-turn fails the environmental cost-benefit test, and is more about industry than sustainability. It’s a giant, collective waste of energy – both man and machine – for paltry green gains.
Have you ever met anyone who honestly loves Re-turn? Who has endless enthusiasm for lugging bottles and cans to frequently-banjaxed RVMs; who truly enjoys hand-feeding filthy containers one-by-one into a hatch with the tenderness of gentle lover, all for a few pence on each one, while a queue behind them watches on?
No matter how many millions Re-turn spend on propaganda – €4.6million in taxpayers’ money on marketing and communications in 2024 alone – more people are seeing it for the naked emperor it is.
Re-turn machines in every shop; a fleet of trucks on the road; and after all that effort and energy, the collected containers are exported to be recycled abroad because we don’t have the facility here. All for an uptick that may well have happened with carrot, not stick.
Recycling rates of bottles and cans went up from approximately 50% to 90% after Re-turn’s introduction, with 76% collected through Re-turn and 15% in the standard recycling bin. But it’s worth noting how recycling rates have doubled and tripled here over recent decades, anyway.
And here’s the real sickener: the Government rejected the option of a digital DRS which would have saved €80million a year and allowed households to continue recycling containers through their existing waste collection bins.
It would have saved 20,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year, according to the Irish Waste Management Association. It also would have been much fairer on old people, those with disabilities, and time-poor dual working households.
The simmering public frustration was an element in the last election when the Greens lost all but one of their 12 seats. Those of us who live in small houses with busy working and domestic lives saw it as yet another drudge job for people already at capacity.
Every time they broke their necks over the pile-up of bottles and cans in the recycling centre that used to be our kitchens, they thought: If you give them an inch they take a mile.
What next? We could have a fifth bin soon, for TetraPaks. Spend all our free time on household labour in the grand name of perfect recycling rates. It could justify anything.
What about this, Green Party? We could ban disposable nappies. They’re one of the biggest sources in landfill waste and take 500 years to decompose. That would have a huge environmental impact. It would result in a huge reduction in the amount of nappies dumped, so why not do it? Yet somehow I can’t see the Re-turn cheerleaders pushing that unpopular policy.
The Re-turn scheme disproportionately hits the less well-off, older people and those with mobility issues. It might be a nice feel-good hobby for wealthy people in large houses with cleaners and cars, but it’s yet another burden when your life isn’t so easy.
Yes, other countries have deposit return schemes. Not all – Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland don’t have it, to name a few.
But those that do are not feeding them individually into outdated machines, as we do, in what is an outdated model. Denmark and Sweden have bulk-tipping in multi-feed machines.
Almost 90% of bottles and cans collected by Re-turn are being exported for recycling, defeating the purpose.
Our charges here are too high: a deposit of 25c and 15c on larger and smaller bottles and cans adds up on a shopping bill, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.
Spain is bringing in the scheme and all containers will have a fairer charge of 10c. Our expensive deposit meant the company made a massive €103million in unredeemed containers in 2024.
Many of us fill up our cars full of bottles and cans, only to chauffeur the lot to the RVM to find it’s broken or closed, necessitating a second or perhaps third journey. I call this activity “taking the Re-turns for a drive.”
There is a lack of transparency around the scheme. While Re-turn is happy to tell us at regular intervals how many bottles and cans have been recycled – 2.5billion since 2024 – it’s not so forthcoming on other information. We had to wait for the 2024 accounts to get such basic figures, and yet we still don’t know the number of unreturned deposits for 2025. As for CEO Ciaran Foley’s salary, Re-turn won’t reveal it.
The public is losing faith in this scheme, for the above reasons. If I were the Minister for the Environment, I’d order a full review of it. We should move to the digital model and watch as the nation rejoices at getting rid of this nuisance drudge.
For now, it’s the most sinful kind of squander – the waste of our collective short time here on earth.
Larissa Nolan is National Communications Director for Aontú, and is writing here in a personal capacity.