Re-turn refuses to disclose details of salaries funded by consumer deposits

The company behind the controversial Re-turn scheme has refused to reveal the salaries of its top executives, which are being funded from deposits paid by consumers on recyclable bottles and cans.

Deposit Return Scheme Ireland Limited was appointed to operate the recycling scheme by Minister of State Ossian Smyth in July 2022. Its board of directors is dominated by representatives of the beverage industry.

The company gets to keep deposits paid on containers that are not subsequently reclaimed, or cannot be reclaimed in cases where reverse vending machines reject bottles and cans.

It also retains all proceeds from the sale of aluminium and plastic collected through the scheme, and has confirmed to the Irish Mirror that it has already sold a quantity of the material to a number of buyers.

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However, a spokesman for Re-turn told the Irish Mirror that the company would not be revealing details of salaries paid to its 36 employees. He also declined to say how much had been raised through the sale of aluminium and plastic.

It follows concerns raised by Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore regarding corporate governance and transparency at the company, which she said was handling a huge amount of public money.

“When you have good governance on a board, it would dictate that the people are independent of the entity as such, that there isn’t any conflict or perceived conflict of interests,” Ms Whitmore told the Irish Mirror.

“Having so many producers on the board would raise concerns for me. [The list] read more like a stakeholders’ group as opposed to a board of directors,” she added.

There are 12 directors of Deposit Return Scheme Limited, including CEO Ciaran Foley, who is a former managing director of DHL Ireland.

Others include Conor Hyland, finance director of Heineken Ireland; Tesco Ireland’s Rosemary Garth, who previously worked for Irish Distillers; Joseph Owens, managing director of Clada Group; Shane Kelly from Lidl; and Kevin Donnelly of Britvic Ireland.

Critics of the scheme have suggested that Irish beverage producers benefit from the legal requirement for retailers to only sell bottles and cans with special Re-turn logos and barcodes, as outlets that previously imported drinks from EU competitors can no longer easily do so.

The company also benefits financially from the rejection of bottles and cans by reverse vending machines, which consumers have complained occurs too often, as it gets to retain unclaimed deposits.

However, a spokesman for Re-turn told the Irish Mirror that they did not want unredeemed deposits, and “strongly encourages” consumers to return their drinks containers to get their deposits back.

“Unredeemed deposits will be reinvested into the scheme and used to fund recycling initiatives to help Ireland achieve future recycling targets,” he said.

“Re-turn employs 36 people to operate Ireland’s national deposit return scheme. As a CLG (company limited by guarantee), we will not be disclosing individual salaries at this time. The company is structured as a not-for-profit,” the spokesman added.

Declining to provide details regarding the sale of aluminium and plastic from the scheme, he said: “The process of selling recyclate to different buyers is commercially sensitive – disclosing this detail in a timeframe shorter than one year risks undercutting the price of recyclate Re-turn can achieve to reinvest into the scheme.”

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