Deposit Return scheme shows strong growth four months on

A 2L bottle and a multipack of 6 x 750mls of water. A typical enough purchase in your local supermarket going into a bank holiday weekend.

The cost is €3.14. Add in the Deposit Return scheme charge, you pay €4.89.

Given the substantial additional cost, it is no surprise that the Irish public have been going out of their way to return more and more drink containers to the country’s 2,300 reverse vending machines (RVMS).

This weekend is a significant one for Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme. Four months since the scheme’s launch and the volume of returns has been increasing strongly.

The transition period for retailers to sell off old stock that did not carry the Re-turn logo also ended and from Saturday 1 June all plastic bottles and drinks cans sold in Ireland are legally required to carry the logo.

Re-turn, the company that is operating the scheme, has been issuing regular updates on progress.

Back in February, when it was first launched, 2 million plastic bottles and drinks cans were returned across the entire month.

In March the figure rose to 20m, by April it was 50 million and this past month the figure topped 75 million.

Ciaran Foley, CEO of Re-turn said he is very pleased with this progress: “We are delighted to see the growth to date in the average numbers of containers returned, and we expect to see this continue as we move out of the transition period. The cooperation of producers, retailers and the public has significantly contributed to the success of Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme so far. Together, we are taking important steps towards a more sustainable future.”

The explosive growth has happened despite initial fairly widespread problems experienced with Reverse Vending Machines ( RVMs).

Consumers complained that the machines would not accept some containers, or were not working, forcing them to take bags of plastic bottles and cans away again.

The company had been very clear from the outset there would be teething problems and has spent a lot of time ironing out difficulties for customers and for retail staff learning to operate RVMs for the first time.

What is not known at this juncture however, is what percentage of containers on which consumers paid deposits have actually being returned.

Every year in Ireland up to 1.9 billion qualifying containers are sold. Sales rise and fall at different times of the year but averaged out over 12 months, you get 158 million drinks containers per month.

Based on figures from Re-turn to date, nowhere near that amount has been returned so far.

The scheme is in its establishment phase, but we asked the company what percentage of containers sold are being returned by consumers and how much deposit money collected by the company has not been claimed back.

In a statement the company said: “Data on individual drinks container sales remains commercially sensitive to retailers and unavailable to Re-turn at this stage. Ireland will not have a full year of the scheme in action until 1 June 2025 to assess more accurate return metrics”.

Regarding deposit monies not returned, the company pointed out that drinks containers may be returned at any time in the future and the deposit will be repaid whenever that happens.

“Given the open-ended nature of Re-turn’s liability to redeem deposits, a return rate calculated over a short period will not provide accurate information on the scheme’s performance.”

New charity partnership

Perhaps some further clues may come on 12 June when the company announces its new charity partnership.

Public details of how this will operate remain scant, but on its website, Re-turn says people will see how their deposits “can make a difference in local communities across Ireland”.

This weekend at Bloom in the Phoenix Park, company staff are also encouraging patrons to put their returns into special fixed and mobile collection bins, thereby donating their deposit to the new charity partnership.

Re-turn was established by drinks producers and retailers in order to fulfil Ireland’s obligations under the EU Single Use Plastics Directive which requires 77% of items are recycled by 2025 and 90% by 2019.

Prior to the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme, 60% of plastic bottles and cans were being returned via recycling bins, but 30% were being dumped.