Green light for vending machines that give cash for old cans and bottles

25 comments
  1. Annoying that it’ll be in the form of supermarket vouchers but I suppose that’s probably better than pumping a whole load of tiny change into our pockets (and hoping that councils remember to get people to actually put it in there) or requiring people to sign up somehow so the money can be sent to a bank account.

    Honestly I think this will have a huge impact on the amount of rubbish that people throw on the ground. They’ll either stop throwing it, or others will collect it to get the vouchers.

  2. An F’ing disgrace that systems like this are so long over due, it boils my piss! They’re in widespread use on the continent for decades.

  3. Oh hey, Drogheda is one of the trial towns! Awesome.

    We go through an insane amount of plastic bottles in our house, and would love to have better access to recycling points (the dump is the far side of town to me, and there’s zero plastic bottle banks). Would happily recycle into this system, espically since we live close to a Dunnes.

  4. I hope they don’t penalise people who struggle to get about. A lot of older/disabled people on fixed incomes have their shopping delivered.

    It’d be nice if they could return the bottles/cans through collection/or use their normal recycling bin and claim back somehow.

  5. Yes it is about time this was reintroduced. Well remember as a kid bring bottles back to Superquinn and getting 5p back per bottle!

  6. “Changes mean higher prices of between 15 and 25 cents for cans and plastic bottles – but these extra costs can be reclaimed when the receptacle is returned.”

    So now I have to drive them to the supermarket instead of using the recycling bin that I also pay for ?

  7. Great idea. They have this in the Netherlands (“statiegeld”) and I’ve always thought it’s a fantastic idea. You’d often seen kids or the homeless going around collecting bottles/cans to get the money off it.

  8. That’s how they do it in Holland. Except first they charge an extra 25c bottle charge for instance which is refundable on return. So you aren’t really getting “paid” as much as you are getting refunded for a tax already paid.

  9. All for it in general but as a small drinks producer there’s still some unanswered questions. I even contacted them and zero response so far. Email was sent in February. Registration for products is August to November if we are to avoid fees for late reg so hopefully they start engaging soon 🙄

  10. The Greens might soon have to give up their reputation of being useless in government if they keep on doing things…

  11. Since this is Ireland these machines will be constantly broken or painfully slow and always have a huge queue at them

  12. The junkies will have Ireland the cleanest country in the world in 24 hours; those ‘hostels’ ain’t cheap

  13. And that means you get 25c back but of course supermarket will need to hike the price of the items by 50c “to pay for the vending machine and electricity”

  14. Why did this need a green light lol.

    Either way, great news. I hate how reliant we are on plastics for food and drink in this country.

    Theres more and more evidence showing that plastic is too difficult to recycle and bad for your health. If we could use glass, metals, cardboard and paper for the majority of our food packaging and then actually make it convenient to recycle or reuse, we might actually be on track to reduce our pollution

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