Waited for 2 full bin bags. Went to centra, dunnes and then Tesco. Gave up in the end and abandoned the empties, wasn't bringing them back home.
Shite scheme and disinterested staff, and I don't blame them. I see these things out of action constantly.
All the articles about millions of euro of unclaimed empties. Starting to think it's by design.
by Phenoxan
26 comments
Bring centers should have be outfitted to handle bulk returns
I saw those red screens in Lidl today. Told a staff member and they went and emptied them immediately. Then they were functioning again. We shouldn’t have to do that but the machines are sometimes full not broken
I don’t think the millions unclaimed is by design. The gubberment has EU recycling targets to meet and they thought these machines would help achieve that
Should be an App to build up credits that can be used against shopping as opposed to messing around with vouchers and coins.
They make it as awkward as hell to get the extra tax back….this should come as a suprise to noone
I just wish they’d still take the unscannables. I don’t care about the deposit. Pain in the bollox dumping 9 bottles and cans and bringing home the tenth.
Selling old bottles with no return sign as well but still paying the deposit
It’s typical schemes in ireland they rush it make a balls of it and line the pocket of some CEO.
Two weekends in a row and the machines at the local Lidl just show a red screen here. You can see bottles piling up on top of the machines and the openings of the machines clearly have bottles laying in it. I don’t blame Lidl there, it’s just the market I have to go anyway so I could return cans there. I don’t want to go from shop to shop in town to find a place that is not out of order.
Speaking of why does the stupid webpage not show which machines are still accepting things?
It’s a pox, designed by a committee of idiots.
I have also had nothing but hassle with the machines keep doing some ‘abnormal detection’ then we have to get our receipt and come back to the machine 5 minutes later when it works again constantly having to get 3 receipts for 1 weeks recycling with these machines makes no sense.
I made a website to track the status of these machines.
https://www.wherecanireturnmybottles.com
I keep seeing post after post of these and don’t want to add to it but every time no one mentions returning over the counter. I don’t drink straight mixers so haven’t ever had to return but has ANYONE managed to return over the counter? I notice the website doesn’t mention the return options at each participating store, starting to wonder if any shop isn’t exempt from over the counter returns.
But but but it works in Germany…
Can you fucking imagine the Germans putting up with this farcical system.
Just look at the machine wrong in Ireland and it will reject whatever your about to put in.
I’m honestly beginning to think propel should just empty their bags onto the floor right at the doorway of these establishments and just walk off if this happens and they refuse or are unable to fix the issue. Specifically the doorway and visible from the street if possible, which makes the shop look bad and people less likely to go there.
It is an arseholes move, but at a certain point you just need to fight fire with fire and exercise civil disobedience (even if small scale) if nothing else is being listened to.
This thread is funny to read as a German who worked in a German beverage shop. I had to make those fuckers work again AND had to constantly clean them 😅
Know of someone with mobility issues who can’t bring the cans for recycling but also has no place to store them for family members to return for her I know this story is probably repeated across the country I don’t know what the solution is it just seems so cruel it’s just an extra tax on her the obvious solution would be for her to stop buying cans and bottles but the water in her place is shite so she has to order the big bottles of water from Tesco
I know it’s not the end of the world just with everything else going on against her in her life it’s just a bit upsetting to me that’s getting hit with an unavoidable tax
Brought 20-30 bottles to a machine. Took all my bottles. Then hit done. Machine has run out of paper and didn’t give me any options other than tough shit. Shop staff gave less than a fuck.
The fact that I have to bring a bag full of bottles to a shop when the recycling bin was doing the same thing just baffles me.
Moronic system
Wait until you discover it also applies to Dublin airport shops…
According to Ciarán Foley CEO of Re-Turn, the plastic will be recycled up to 7 times, no idea what happens after that though no one asked him. Doesn’t sound like an environmentally sound solution. With all the micro plastics and PFAs in our bodies, maybe it’s time to try something else.
Dump ’em and shoplift the equivalent 
The irony of them producing a piece of paper so each time
We should be able to get our money back for the non-scannable. The prick in charge of the company saying oh we don’t want Ur money….they are raking in millions from these & people who aren’t bothered. What gets me even more is the fact nobody is commenting that 24pk of soft drinks is now 18 & dearer…..to cover the cost of the manufacturers doing different labels for ri.
The scheme is fundamentally flawed. I don’t have a car, live in Dublin and am about a twenty five minute walk from the nearest shop that takes returns. If I carry my returns to the shop and the machine is out of order or full, I don’t have a way of bringing them back home at the same time as my shopping for the week. What am I supposed to do then?
I care a lot about environmental issues and climate change, so I’m in favour of this type of scheme, but they’ve fucked the implementation. By granting so many exemptions for shops from accepting returns and by making shit of the transition period by allowing shops to sell a mix of non returnable and returnable stock, every compromise in the scheme has been to the detriment of the consumer. There isn’t even an official app to scan barcodes to see if they qualify for the scheme, some lad had to put one online himself for people to use.
I’d be in favour of discouraging the use of
plastic bottles generally, although that’s not supposed to be an aim of the scheme, but it’s also made recycling cans, which are infinitely recyclable, far more difficult than was previously the case. I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage of cans recycled actually goes down.
I just went in today, to try out these recycling stations. I had a bin bag full of bottles with me. There were two machines at my local SuperValu shop.
I pick the machine on the left, start placing the bottles and I watch as they get pulled in and smashed, thinking “it’s fine, I don’t know what ppl on Reddit are on about…”
After the 5th bottle gets pulled in, the machine stops with a message: “BIN IS FULL”.
By now, there’s a guy on the machine to my right, and he’s got TWO bin bags full of bottles. I wait patiently for 10 minutes untill he finishes. When he does, the machine crashes with the message “NO PRINT PAPER”. Both of us utter swear words.
I go look for a staff member, who then go get another staff member, who then unlocks a front panel and opens the machine and, wait for it, there’s still enough paper in there to print 300.000 receipts. Staff person prints out the dude’s receipt, dude goes out groaning and mumbling.
My turn now (again). After placing the remaining 20 plastic bottles, I go press the button to print my receipt, machine spits out about 2 metres of blank paper. Staff called again. Machine opened, paper is jammed, paper roll is replaced, my receipt is finally printed. I go out groaning and mumbling.
My payment: € 7.50 in 2 vouchers. I never felt so underpaid for so much bother.
There are a few ways the return scheme could be improved on if they want it to actually work properly:
– Give every household with a green bin the option of a free blue bin as well for the cans and bottles. Could be paid as a reduction in bin charges or credit. Or just allow this when putting them into the regular green bin somehow.
– Scrap the exemption allowing certain retailers not to accept them. As in Germany, it should eventually be every retailer that sells them should accept them back.
– Give the option of straight cash instead of machine -> voucher -> cash. Or at least make the vouchers universally accepted in multiple shops.
The machines could be retained as an extra way of returning, but the fact they’re too heavily relied on is part of the fundamental problem the scheme is facing. There needs to be an easy way both for people to return then when out and about and in bulk. The machines alone are inadequate for either.
Ofc its by design, if you were meant to make money you would get cash out. But no! Your money is in the system and everything is plastic gets more expensive. You will weep your arse off once they put this shite into every plastic from laundry to food and candy. And all this shite will get exported to some third world shite hole where its dumped into the ocean. But the clsotres get 15-20% more profit for sake of recycling, what a joke.