Ministers flooded with deposit return scheme complaints from consumers and retailers
A group of preschoolers were among those who recently contacted ministers about issues with the controversial scheme, which Re-turn claims has the support of 74 per cent of the public
Government politicians continue to be bombarded with complaints regarding the deposit return scheme despite claims by the operator that 74 per cent of people now support the recycling initiative.
Re-turn, the company behind the scheme, has also been inundated with correspondence, receiving nearly 1,000 emails and 545 phone calls from consumers and retailers during a recent 20-day period.
Environment Minister Eamon Ryan, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, Education Minister Norma Foley, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien, and newly appointed Finance Minister Jack Chambers are among those who received complaints in recent months.
"Your new scheme to rob us of money for the so-called Green agenda has made me sick!" one person wrote to Mr Ryan. "Plastic bottle return scheme is a scam and not a green policy as the public now have to travel with bags of bottles to vending machines. You are a disgrace!"
READ MORE: Government told four years ago that deposit return scheme would result in bin-charge hikes
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Another correspondent claimed that their car now resembled "a recycling bin" as a result of the scheme. "I have to take time out of my hectic day to visit a deposit return depot, most often these are not working, and I’m left with a boot full of sticky cans and bottles," they complained.
A number of emails claimed that reverse vending machines were rejecting a large proportion of containers, with one man reporting that he had brought more than 20 bottles to one return point but "only four were accepted".
In a message sent directly to Mr Ryan’s own website, one complainant neatly summarised how the scheme operated: "If in a shop I pay extra for cans, I have to bring them back to a shop to get my money back. That’s stuiped (sic)."
Norma Foley was contacted by a constituent who told the education minister that she pays €400 a year for a bin service and has no means of transport to return bottles herself. She therefore felt the scheme made it very expensive and difficult for people like her to reduce waste and recycle.
Former justice minister Charlie Flanagan referred correspondence he received from a small retailer to the minister responsible for the scheme, Ossian Smyth, noting that the man had made some "valid points".
The retailer described the scheme as "a mess from the very start" and said he needed to accept almost 2,600 containers through his reverse vending machine in order to break even each week.
He wrote that this had given "an unnecessary advantage" to big retailers and put smaller operators at risk of closure.
He also claimed that customers had told him that they were recycling their cans and bottles through the waste collection service, as they "have no wish or desire to travel… to deposit any bottles or cans".
Finance Minister Jack Chambers received an email from a constituent who argued that, if recycling companies had not been dealing with bottles and cans efficiently, then government policy should focus on them, “rather than on my wallet”.
Among the complaints about the accessibility of the scheme was an email to Eamon Ryan from a group of preschoolers who had visited a reverse vending machine as they were learning about recycling.
“This week at school we are learning about how to help our Earth,” it read. “We learned about recycling and are bringing our bottles to Supervalu to recycle. We can’t reach these machines.
“Now we can’t learn to recycle or help our mams or dads recycle the bottles and cans. Our teachers had to lift us up to put the bottles in. [Someone] said that people in wheelchairs also can’t reach these and help to recycle.”
Two complainants claimed that patients in a named hospital no longer had access to drinking water because there was an issue with the tap water, and the facility had stopped providing bottled water since the introduction of the scheme.
Several complaints related to the operation of the scheme at Irish airports, where departing passengers who bought drinks before boarding had no way of reclaiming their deposits.
One person calculated that if 50 per cent of 100,000 daily outward passengers buy a drink at an airport, over €2.7 million in uncollected deposits will end up in Re-turn’s coffers each year.
Copies of the complaints were obtained by the Irish Mirror under the Freedom of Information Act.
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