The only thing I take to recycling is glass bottles and jars. I give aluminum to historical society, and they take it to a place and get money for it.
Recycling Scam
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Deposit Return, Reverse vending scheme
If it goes ahead, the UK's proposed Deposit Return Scheme is expected to cost in excess of £1.8 billion per year (about 2.3 billion dollars).
The scheme won't include glass bottles, due to opposition from the glass industry. In some countries it has resulted in a significant shift from glass to plastic bottles due to consumers buying larger sized bottles. They also claim it would roughly triple the cost of recycling them, to over £600 per tonne of glass.
If it goes ahead, the UK's proposed Deposit Return Scheme is expected to cost in excess of £1.8 billion per year (about 2.3 billion dollars).
The scheme won't include glass bottles, due to opposition from the glass industry. In some countries it has resulted in a significant shift from glass to plastic bottles due to consumers buying larger sized bottles. They also claim it would roughly triple the cost of recycling them, to over £600 per tonne of glass.
mark_wpduet
Well-known member
that's horrifying... If this goes on... it makes you wonder if they really give a crap about the planet at all... sometimes I feel like the people who scream green the loudest are doing the exact opposite behind the scenes.
Part of the issue is that reverse vending or deposit schemes extract the valuable (PET plastic/aluminum) discarded materials from the waste stream, making curbside recycling less of a break-even scenario.
I do wonder about the efficacy of the deposit programs, as we split our time between reverse vending at nearly every point of sale (Michigan) and bulk (California) deposit returns. I appreciate being able to crush cans/bottles before returning in California (saving time and space) but it seems like a lot of work for not much $$ (granted Michigan's 10 cent deposit is double California's on small cans/bottles).
Our community in Michigan is very crunchy (we get our leaves sucked up from the curbs, for instance) but there were some MASSIVELY bothered people when curbside recycling was paused after a flood (they wanted to maximize capacity to get rid of the flood damaged stuff so only did single passes through the city with the landfill waste trucks) and they didn't notify that this was taking place. People (admittedly who weren't flooded) were perfectly happy holding off their recyclables for a week or two.
I do wonder about the efficacy of the deposit programs, as we split our time between reverse vending at nearly every point of sale (Michigan) and bulk (California) deposit returns. I appreciate being able to crush cans/bottles before returning in California (saving time and space) but it seems like a lot of work for not much $$ (granted Michigan's 10 cent deposit is double California's on small cans/bottles).
Our community in Michigan is very crunchy (we get our leaves sucked up from the curbs, for instance) but there were some MASSIVELY bothered people when curbside recycling was paused after a flood (they wanted to maximize capacity to get rid of the flood damaged stuff so only did single passes through the city with the landfill waste trucks) and they didn't notify that this was taking place. People (admittedly who weren't flooded) were perfectly happy holding off their recyclables for a week or two.
The big one that’s coming up here has been online deliveries. A lot of people do their groceries online. That’s especially true for older people who might not drive anymore, but it’s something that a lot of people who just don’t have time do too.
Not everyone physically goes to a supermarket regularly. If you’re in a more rural area it might mean driving long distances to get to an RVM, and it might not work, leaving you with bags of bottles and cans in the car.
Then you’ve people who live in city centre areas who might not have a load of space to store this stuff and it’s not always very convenient to get that stuff to the nearest RVM location.
It’s fine if you’re in the majority of households -suburbs, drive to supermarkets regularly, have space to store cans and bottles in the garage or whatever, but plenty of people are going to find it inconvenient.
I can see them accumulating a lot of unreturned deposits in the scheme.
A lot of companies are moving to tetrapak and glass, which is a bit counterproductive..
I know for example my older relatives in their late 80s just aren’t using it. They just continued to use their normal green bin (kerbside pick up) and are absorbing the 10 or 25c deposits
Not everyone physically goes to a supermarket regularly. If you’re in a more rural area it might mean driving long distances to get to an RVM, and it might not work, leaving you with bags of bottles and cans in the car.
Then you’ve people who live in city centre areas who might not have a load of space to store this stuff and it’s not always very convenient to get that stuff to the nearest RVM location.
It’s fine if you’re in the majority of households -suburbs, drive to supermarkets regularly, have space to store cans and bottles in the garage or whatever, but plenty of people are going to find it inconvenient.
I can see them accumulating a lot of unreturned deposits in the scheme.
A lot of companies are moving to tetrapak and glass, which is a bit counterproductive..
I know for example my older relatives in their late 80s just aren’t using it. They just continued to use their normal green bin (kerbside pick up) and are absorbing the 10 or 25c deposits
E-waste
The people exporting waste to places like that only care about the money they can make.
It is actually illegal to export waste electrical and electronic equipment from the UK & EU (WEEE directive) unless the recipient processing site conforms to the same standards required in the UK.
One loophole is to set yourself up as an approved waste processor, certify the scrap appliances you take in as working, or repairable, then you can bung them in a container, hidden behind a few decent looking ones at the front just in case anyone inspects it, and ship the lot overseas.
Here's one guy who finally got some well deserved gaol time, although he was actually done for fraudulently claiming recycling fees. He had previous convictions for exporting hazardous WEEE waste to Nigeria and VAT fraud, which he failed to pay the fines for. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-49498451
One of his vehicles was a moped, that according to his paperwork, carried 991 TVs and 413 fridges in a single trip!
The people exporting waste to places like that only care about the money they can make.
It is actually illegal to export waste electrical and electronic equipment from the UK & EU (WEEE directive) unless the recipient processing site conforms to the same standards required in the UK.
One loophole is to set yourself up as an approved waste processor, certify the scrap appliances you take in as working, or repairable, then you can bung them in a container, hidden behind a few decent looking ones at the front just in case anyone inspects it, and ship the lot overseas.
Here's one guy who finally got some well deserved gaol time, although he was actually done for fraudulently claiming recycling fees. He had previous convictions for exporting hazardous WEEE waste to Nigeria and VAT fraud, which he failed to pay the fines for. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-49498451
One of his vehicles was a moped, that according to his paperwork, carried 991 TVs and 413 fridges in a single trip!
Turning tons of garbage into tons of garbage!
Reply #16, ME, on our deposit/return system here:
Well, I question true recycling being done too, based on what you'd said, as you only have the amusement with these machines squashing what you could easily just recycle at home...
And people antsy about getting their deposits back as well as "profiting" from discarded containers, when you can't break even from what you have already bought just to buy more of what you have to bring back...
The containers were once sorted by hand, a messy and distasteful task with them mostly containing not thoroughly emptied used liquids, not quite making ecological sense to have to rinse them out due to the water you would use, and consuming stockroom space while seeing to it the right brands went with the right distributors not always having room for those massive plastic bags of in their trucks...
So, sadly, I just resign myself to paying ten-cents more, as in an environmental fee, refusing to just bring anything back to be recycled that I'll at least do at home... Rather than look at a messy room that seems to have more not being recycled in that manner, since those containers have to be carried in boxes or bags and often with discarded containers that don't have the 10-cents deposit accidentally thrown in--what to do with those?
-- Dave
Reply #16, ME, on our deposit/return system here:
Well, I question true recycling being done too, based on what you'd said, as you only have the amusement with these machines squashing what you could easily just recycle at home...
And people antsy about getting their deposits back as well as "profiting" from discarded containers, when you can't break even from what you have already bought just to buy more of what you have to bring back...
The containers were once sorted by hand, a messy and distasteful task with them mostly containing not thoroughly emptied used liquids, not quite making ecological sense to have to rinse them out due to the water you would use, and consuming stockroom space while seeing to it the right brands went with the right distributors not always having room for those massive plastic bags of in their trucks...
So, sadly, I just resign myself to paying ten-cents more, as in an environmental fee, refusing to just bring anything back to be recycled that I'll at least do at home... Rather than look at a messy room that seems to have more not being recycled in that manner, since those containers have to be carried in boxes or bags and often with discarded containers that don't have the 10-cents deposit accidentally thrown in--what to do with those?
-- Dave
I like the $.10 deposit and would support it being expanded. While it's not fun returning bottles and cans, it has vastly cleaned up the road ways and rural areas. I recall the mess along our roads prior to the return program.
Based on the available figures, the proposed deposit return scheme over here, is going to add 28p ($0.35) to the price of a large drinks bottle, and 18p for a small one, assuming they split the costs evenly. 20p for the returnable deposit (10p for small bottles and cans), plus at least an additional 8p in costs. I think it might be more efficient to try to improve the present system.
I'm also slightly concerned that some of the neighbourhood's kids might start rummaging through the recycling boxes left out for collection to supplement their pocket money, and leave a mess on the lawn.
It might cut down on littering, but we don't get a lot of discarded bottles and cans around here.
I'm also slightly concerned that some of the neighbourhood's kids might start rummaging through the recycling boxes left out for collection to supplement their pocket money, and leave a mess on the lawn.
It might cut down on littering, but we don't get a lot of discarded bottles and cans around here.
One of the issues we are seeing here now is that because Ireland is only a market of 5.2 million people and is already on the fringes of logistic chains being an island, some companies are just opting no longer to supply products rather than be setup on the scheme. I can see people becoming rather annoyed with the whole thing.
I suspect the Green Party is toast in the next elections tbh. They’re polling at 4% !!
If it’s not implemented EU wide it’s just a trade barrier in the internal single European market.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-ne...ucts-vanish-from-the-shelves/a1302991357.html
I suspect the Green Party is toast in the next elections tbh. They’re polling at 4% !!
If it’s not implemented EU wide it’s just a trade barrier in the internal single European market.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-ne...ucts-vanish-from-the-shelves/a1302991357.html
Have to say that despite the article, the logo is starting to appear on a lot of niche brands and big mainstream ones.
Just curious if the Irish logo is appearing on U.K. or any other Euripean versions too?
Some of these products just slap on all the logos for various markets as it’s easier.
Others are simply just registering the barcodes and not labelling yet. So the machines still recognise the bottles.
Just curious if the Irish logo is appearing on U.K. or any other Euripean versions too?
Some of these products just slap on all the logos for various markets as it’s easier.
Others are simply just registering the barcodes and not labelling yet. So the machines still recognise the bottles.
Just over a month into the scheme and we have issues:
https://www.independent.ie/irish-ne...and-can-deposit-return-scheme/a686157641.html
“Millions of euro go unclaimed in first 40 days of plastic bottle and can deposit return scheme.”
It took in 7 million containers of 193 million, the vast majority of which are likely still going into kerbside recycling or are making their way into non recycling waste, so it’s capturing a whopping 3.63% so far.
The machines are also weird. The larger ones at supermarkets work reliably but there are also smaller machines that aren’t much bigger than a large side by side fridge/freezer that have been installed in smaller stores like convenience stores and petrol (gas) stations they are just so finicky to use. They frequently refuse to read barcodes and are just a poor user experience.
The estimates were that it would take in about €1m per day in deposits. In its first month it’s only returned €1.2m. So a lot of deposits are being abandoned. Just for context, Ireland’s population is 5.2 million, so roughly equivalent to a state like South Carolina or a Canadian province like British Columbia, slightly fewer people than Victoria in Australia.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-ne...and-can-deposit-return-scheme/a686157641.html
“Millions of euro go unclaimed in first 40 days of plastic bottle and can deposit return scheme.”
It took in 7 million containers of 193 million, the vast majority of which are likely still going into kerbside recycling or are making their way into non recycling waste, so it’s capturing a whopping 3.63% so far.
The machines are also weird. The larger ones at supermarkets work reliably but there are also smaller machines that aren’t much bigger than a large side by side fridge/freezer that have been installed in smaller stores like convenience stores and petrol (gas) stations they are just so finicky to use. They frequently refuse to read barcodes and are just a poor user experience.
The estimates were that it would take in about €1m per day in deposits. In its first month it’s only returned €1.2m. So a lot of deposits are being abandoned. Just for context, Ireland’s population is 5.2 million, so roughly equivalent to a state like South Carolina or a Canadian province like British Columbia, slightly fewer people than Victoria in Australia.
Bottle and can return deposits
It’s too bad that set up such a complicated system, they should just give $.10 back for every bottle and can that somebody brings in, and charge Around $.15 when you buy the item that would cover the cost of collecting it it would keep people from littering and make them recycle it.
John
It’s too bad that set up such a complicated system, they should just give $.10 back for every bottle and can that somebody brings in, and charge Around $.15 when you buy the item that would cover the cost of collecting it it would keep people from littering and make them recycle it.
John
I have noticed that I’m being charged the deposit when I buy bottled drinks in Dublin. I have zero intention of taking my used bottles/cans to a location that gives me the deposit back. I don’t use enough to make it worthwhile.
Mark
Mark
The problem with this, certainly in an Irish context, is that consumers aren't all that motivated to engage with something like this.
I studied consumer marketing once upon a time, and Ireland very much fits into the description of so called hedonistic consumers. We value the experience of shopping and a bit of luxury and convenience is attractive. Most shoppers aren't driven by utility and aren't very price sensitive. A lot people us won't be able to tell you the price of a litre of milk or a loaf of bread, but we would probably tell you that the display was lovely.
Basically, it's an audience who are highly unlikely to engage with this, yet it was rammed through based on experience in entirely different markets with very different consumer behaviour patterns.
If you look at the history of coupon schemes and so on here, people don't tend to get very excited about them and don't bother collecting them. The engagement is often very low.
We even tend to rather half heartedly engage in loyalty point schemes and so on, unless there's some very significant incentive and the whole thing's all reduced down to a very simple mobile phone app that requires very little time spent engaging with it and we're reminded constantly at the till.
This scheme is asking people to collect bottles and cans, bulky and uncrushed and then drive to the supermarket and spend 10 mins loading them one by one carefully into a machine to get some bit of paper with a barcode on it to get at most a couple of Euro off their shopping.
A few % will engage mostly because they've a strong environmental commitment, the rest won't.
Then you also have all the practical issues with the scheme : It's requiring people to store bottles, which is fine if you're in the suburbs somewhere - it might not be if you're in a smaller home.
It assumes that you can drive to a supermarket. That's not always the case if you're elderly in particular and there's a % of people who use home delivery shopping / online shopping who are not being addressed at all and the PR around this scheme just glossed over that as if it didn't matter.
It also ignores the fact that about 2/3 of us live in areas with very low population densities, so if you drive to a supermarket and the machine doesn't work, you're not likely to drive 20 mins to some other supermarket to offload a few bottles - even from an environmental point of view that makes little sense.
I've elderly relatives who are very annoyed about it. They've fixed incomes. They're from a generation that's more aware of saving a few pennies here and there and really pay attention and they are the very people who probably would use the scheme, but can't because they mostly use home delivery services.
The solution being proposed is 'oh just ask a friend, family member or neighbour.' That's lovely, but it's also very disempowering and I've one relative who considered it HIGHLY patronising to the point she's unlikely to vote for anyone who supported this.
What I don't understand is why they couldn't have just tried a collection system that operated plastic bottles at the kerbside. Instead, we seem to have spent probably tens of millions of Euro on a load of reverse vending machines, which btw had to be purchased by the retailers (at their own expense) under the legislation and has just been passed back on to the general price of groceries.
If they'd made this super convenient for consumers, had a nice PR campaign and used a lot of carrots rather than sticks - it would have worked.
Anyway, we'll see how it goes in a few months time. I don't predict a sudden surge of engagement.
I studied consumer marketing once upon a time, and Ireland very much fits into the description of so called hedonistic consumers. We value the experience of shopping and a bit of luxury and convenience is attractive. Most shoppers aren't driven by utility and aren't very price sensitive. A lot people us won't be able to tell you the price of a litre of milk or a loaf of bread, but we would probably tell you that the display was lovely.
Basically, it's an audience who are highly unlikely to engage with this, yet it was rammed through based on experience in entirely different markets with very different consumer behaviour patterns.
If you look at the history of coupon schemes and so on here, people don't tend to get very excited about them and don't bother collecting them. The engagement is often very low.
We even tend to rather half heartedly engage in loyalty point schemes and so on, unless there's some very significant incentive and the whole thing's all reduced down to a very simple mobile phone app that requires very little time spent engaging with it and we're reminded constantly at the till.
This scheme is asking people to collect bottles and cans, bulky and uncrushed and then drive to the supermarket and spend 10 mins loading them one by one carefully into a machine to get some bit of paper with a barcode on it to get at most a couple of Euro off their shopping.
A few % will engage mostly because they've a strong environmental commitment, the rest won't.
Then you also have all the practical issues with the scheme : It's requiring people to store bottles, which is fine if you're in the suburbs somewhere - it might not be if you're in a smaller home.
It assumes that you can drive to a supermarket. That's not always the case if you're elderly in particular and there's a % of people who use home delivery shopping / online shopping who are not being addressed at all and the PR around this scheme just glossed over that as if it didn't matter.
It also ignores the fact that about 2/3 of us live in areas with very low population densities, so if you drive to a supermarket and the machine doesn't work, you're not likely to drive 20 mins to some other supermarket to offload a few bottles - even from an environmental point of view that makes little sense.
I've elderly relatives who are very annoyed about it. They've fixed incomes. They're from a generation that's more aware of saving a few pennies here and there and really pay attention and they are the very people who probably would use the scheme, but can't because they mostly use home delivery services.
The solution being proposed is 'oh just ask a friend, family member or neighbour.' That's lovely, but it's also very disempowering and I've one relative who considered it HIGHLY patronising to the point she's unlikely to vote for anyone who supported this.
What I don't understand is why they couldn't have just tried a collection system that operated plastic bottles at the kerbside. Instead, we seem to have spent probably tens of millions of Euro on a load of reverse vending machines, which btw had to be purchased by the retailers (at their own expense) under the legislation and has just been passed back on to the general price of groceries.
If they'd made this super convenient for consumers, had a nice PR campaign and used a lot of carrots rather than sticks - it would have worked.
Anyway, we'll see how it goes in a few months time. I don't predict a sudden surge of engagement.
Thank you, NOVUM, you see a lot my way, in that our recycling begins at home--not adding to our grocery bill, though found discarded containers not making it to the system are such a joy that our goods are actually cheaper, though still false economy...
The containers need to be brought to a destination via bins they are crushed in, new bins replace those, in these machines I'm talking, then there's the ticket for the amount processed and to be refunded, the ticket is marked that the containers are redeemed and some staff gets carried away with a sharpie marker to do all that marking with!
Well, I'll keep my long-story short, but where exactly is the true recycling in this "fractionalized", I guess, I'll borrow your word: SCHEME?!
-- Dave
The containers need to be brought to a destination via bins they are crushed in, new bins replace those, in these machines I'm talking, then there's the ticket for the amount processed and to be refunded, the ticket is marked that the containers are redeemed and some staff gets carried away with a sharpie marker to do all that marking with!
Well, I'll keep my long-story short, but where exactly is the true recycling in this "fractionalized", I guess, I'll borrow your word: SCHEME?!
-- Dave
Well the aim of the system is to concentrate higher quality materials i.e. in this case aluminium and certain food grade plastics.
Glass recycling here gets very high uptake, without any incentive through a mix of kerbside pick up and glassbanks, so it wasn't included in the deposit scheme.
They're having issues with plastics and cans because kerbside here is mixed, other than glass. So there's a big sorting process in the green bin system. They could easily have tackled that.
Trash pick up here was also completely privatised. It's a slightly bonkers system. You have multiple operators in some areas, much like utility companies. You typically have general waste, compostable waste, recycling and glass as separate bins.
They're all highly branded and some of them even roll in other services like gas and electricity as part of packages.
They charge by weight for the non-recyclable elements. So, the more you divert into compost / recycling the cheaper your bill.
The bin has an RFID tag in the handle, and when the truck lifts it it goes onto your invoice. Most providers have apps and websites so you can see what you've been charged. It's much like any other utility bill. That was introduced maybe a decade ago or so and they removed the waste management function from city councils / county councils.
The downside is that some people will just point blank refuse to pay and we've had an uptick in what is referred to as 'fly tipping' i.e. illegal dumping. It's not THAT big a deal, but there's definitely a small % of people who just will opt to fling a bag of trash down a lane somewhere or throw it into someone else's trash, rather than pay a bill.
In some areas, mostly in quite downtown locations, that's now resulted in bins with 'gravity locks' which only open when the container is inverted by the truck or when the owner uses a key!
It also resulted in people using litter bins / trashcans to sneak in household waste, which resulted in cities and towns not installing them, which also has had an impact on litter and it completely precludes the use of communal bins in town houses / apartment buildings. You'll often end up with a carpark full of individual bins, one for each unit!
Frankly, the whole approach here is N U T S and was driven by a mixture of green policy and trying to implement that with very dogmatic ideas of market economics being the only way to do anything.
Glass recycling here gets very high uptake, without any incentive through a mix of kerbside pick up and glassbanks, so it wasn't included in the deposit scheme.
They're having issues with plastics and cans because kerbside here is mixed, other than glass. So there's a big sorting process in the green bin system. They could easily have tackled that.
Trash pick up here was also completely privatised. It's a slightly bonkers system. You have multiple operators in some areas, much like utility companies. You typically have general waste, compostable waste, recycling and glass as separate bins.
They're all highly branded and some of them even roll in other services like gas and electricity as part of packages.
They charge by weight for the non-recyclable elements. So, the more you divert into compost / recycling the cheaper your bill.
The bin has an RFID tag in the handle, and when the truck lifts it it goes onto your invoice. Most providers have apps and websites so you can see what you've been charged. It's much like any other utility bill. That was introduced maybe a decade ago or so and they removed the waste management function from city councils / county councils.
The downside is that some people will just point blank refuse to pay and we've had an uptick in what is referred to as 'fly tipping' i.e. illegal dumping. It's not THAT big a deal, but there's definitely a small % of people who just will opt to fling a bag of trash down a lane somewhere or throw it into someone else's trash, rather than pay a bill.
In some areas, mostly in quite downtown locations, that's now resulted in bins with 'gravity locks' which only open when the container is inverted by the truck or when the owner uses a key!
It also resulted in people using litter bins / trashcans to sneak in household waste, which resulted in cities and towns not installing them, which also has had an impact on litter and it completely precludes the use of communal bins in town houses / apartment buildings. You'll often end up with a carpark full of individual bins, one for each unit!
Frankly, the whole approach here is N U T S and was driven by a mixture of green policy and trying to implement that with very dogmatic ideas of market economics being the only way to do anything.
Which is sadly how things there are here...
-- Dave
(But with one garbage bag out per week, and my recycling only making it to half-full, I'm still keeping my carbon footprint small!)
-- Dave
(But with one garbage bag out per week, and my recycling only making it to half-full, I'm still keeping my carbon footprint small!)
