{"id":65453,"date":"2025-09-15T12:56:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T12:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/65453\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T12:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T12:56:06","slug":"from-it-adds-car-journeys-to-an-incentive-for-people-to-litter-less-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/65453\/","title":{"rendered":"From \u2018it adds car journeys\u2019 to \u2018an incentive for people to litter less\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ciaran Foley highlighted how many people on social media give out about the Re-turn scheme<\/a> so we figured where better for us to turn to get a sense of what people think. <\/p>\n

To be fair to the users of X who responded to our query about their takes on the Re-turn scheme \u2013 the perspectives were many and varied and quite nuanced.<\/p>\n

We tended to discount the views offered by anonymous users although it is worth saying that a great many of those with handles such as LORD OF THE TRUTHSAYERS and ISPEAKTRUTHSTHEMSMHIDES were against the notion entirely. <\/p>\n

We may as well start with John McGuirk<\/a> who you might recognise as the editor of online publication Gript. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is not a fan. \u201cNever used it. Never will,\u201d he says. \u201cRecycle at home. Pay the extra cash for what it is and was always intended to be \u2013 just another tax. Is the time it takes me to lug bottles to the supermarket worth 15c to me? No. No, it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recycled all containers before the scheme so no benefit to the environment in the scheme from us,\u201d says Barry O\u2019Sullivan. \u201cTried the machines, but they are very unreliable \u2013 more importantly, like most people these days we are quite busy and often don\u2019t have the time to stand in a queue and then deal with pushing the containers in one by one. The solution we came up with is to drop off all our containers at a charity collection point \u2013 so that\u2019s a positive that\u2019s come from the scheme. Of course, that\u2019s not an option for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Are you getting the best deal when returning your plastic drinks bottles and cans for a refund?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Karl Brophy reckons that \u201conline shopping and deliveries have taken a lot of vehicular journeys out of shopping. This scheme adds car journeys back in \u2013 how many is not measured. A pain is finding space to store intact containers in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

He may have been thinking of someone such as Colette Mullins, who \u201cused to recycle before the scheme and get my groceries delivered. Now I have to drive to shop to do recycling and groceries still delivered. Extra car journeys \u2013 very green initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cllr Dermot Lacey likes the scheme but \u201cone thing infuriates\u201d And what is that? He is infuriated by machines that are \u201cnearly always full or broken. When it is I no longer shop there as it seems to be sort of offered incentive but then no offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilian Forde is pretty blunt: \u201cI hate it, waste of time and not worth the pennies, stuff goes into recycling bin. But city centre seems cleaner as some people collect the bottles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helen O\u2019Driscoll is even blunter: \u201cI hate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niall O\u2019Driscoll says that although he does not use it, his children have \u201cput lipstick on this particular pig by returning them for pocket money\u201d.<\/p>\n

Then there is Ger Lally, who says it is a \u201cpain to be honest \u2013 don\u2019t have time to queue and just use our recycle bin. See it working for families with young kids \u2013 a learning tool and incentive to get some extra pocket money.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while there are many critics, there are many supporters to.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had these machines in Sweden when I was a kid,\u201d says Michel Jonas Nilsson. \u201cWorked absolutely fine. It\u2019s probably too soon to say if it\u2019s a success or not. Give it a few years and I think people will get used to them. Same as with the tax on plastic bags in shops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuala N\u00ed Chonghaile describes herself as a \u201cregular beach cleaner on the very west of Ireland\u201d and says \u201cplastic bottles used to be commonplace and are definitely not washed up as much any more\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo problems,\u201d says Kay MacKeogh. \u201cI bring the bag of returns when I\u2019m doing the big shop, The bins were full about twice in the last year, so I just put the bag in the car and try again next time. The deposits are fairly hefty, so I\u2019m not going to let whoever runs the system keep my hard earned money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorcha N\u00ed Maolcr\u00f3in was initially \u201cdubious of the benefit of the scheme but I think it has been beneficial. Discards on the street did drop off, and the little refund gratification trick still works. Even when some enterprising child decides to recycle for you, I like the incentive it offers them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pat Piggot has found it \u201cexcellent. We were already recycling everything. Rare to see a discarded can or bottle now, which is brilliant. We use the return bin in local shop (never broken and couple of times it was full they emptied it). Spend the vouchers locally so win for them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI return every bottle and can to get MY deposit back,\u201d says Caroline N\u00ed Bhuachalla. \u201cI am not going to let them keep my money. I pick up discarded cans\/bottles in my neighbourhood when walking the dog. So yes, it is successful in that there is an incentive for people to litter less and also to pick up litter.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Caroline Newell the only issue \u201cis having to load items in one at a time. It\u2019s crazy that they didn\u2019t go with a multi-item return machine from Day 1, eliminate queues and much of the frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is, says Charlie Kavanagh a \u201cgreat scheme. Rewarded for recycling plastics and cans ain\u2019t bad. Also, charities can benefit by collecting them, another plus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia King says the scheme has turned her \u201cinto a magpie when I\u2019m out walking. Every bottle and can comes home with me! About \u20ac150-\u20ac200 raised from litter for the community. I get the issue with the machines being inaccessible for a section of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

And one more. \u201cNo complaints in our house,\u201d says Angela Holohan. \u201cAnd it\u2019s great to see local community centres and charities using it as a much needed funding resource.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ciaran Foley highlighted how many people on social media give out about the Re-turn scheme so we figured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[2190,46093,18,440,19,17,46092,6641,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-65453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-cost-of-living","9":"tag-deposit-return-scheme","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-john-mcguirk","15":"tag-pricewatch","16":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}