Deposit return scheme sees more than 21m bottles and cans given back

Ireland’s new deposit return scheme has seen more than 21 million bottles and cans returned between the scheme staring on February 1st and March 29th, the scheme promoters have said.

Customers who pay a deposit on cans and bottles receive their deposit back when they return the empty and undamaged plastic bottle or aluminium can to participating shops and supermarkets nationwide.

Customers may also bring their cans and bottles to a “reverse vending machine”, which issues a voucher that can be redeemed at the till against store purchases, or as a cash refund. There are some 2,300 such machines operating across the Republic.

Re-turn said the actual figure for cans and bottles returned up to March 29th was 21,018,360.

[ Deposit scheme refunds €1.2m to customers returning cans and plastic bottles ]

Re-turn recorded its highest daily collection rate on Friday, March 29th, with 1,267,178 bottles and cans returned.

More than 2.2 million drink containers were collected during St Patrick’s weekend alone, organisers said.

Re-turn said the scheme’s performance is tracking well against similar deposit return schemes in the EU.

Benchmarked against Slovakia, where a scheme launched in January 2022 collected 264,000 containers in the first month, Ireland is doing well with 2 million in its first month. By its second month, Slovakia had reached 8 million containers, a figure Ireland surpassed with over 10 million containers by March 18.

Ciaran Foley, chief executive of Re-turn, said “the support of consumers nationwide is really positive and as more Re-turn logo products enter circulation, we are seeing high return numbers that will only continue to grow as we all become more accustomed to the scheme.”

Re-turn is part of Ireland’s strategy to meet and exceed EU recycling targets and has seen a significant uptake in participation since its launch.

Up to the scheme’s launch just 60 per cent of plastic bottles and cans were being collected for recycling through recycling bins.

By placing a monetary value on the drinks containers, Re-turn incentivises consumers to return their bottles and cans in order to get their deposit back.

The separate collection of drinks containers also eliminates cross contamination resulting in a higher quality of material collected, according to Re-turn.