*Bridget Ginnnity a local election candidate for the Green Party in the Ennis MD using a reverse vending machine.
CIVIC sites are expected to be included in phase two of the Deposit Return Scheme.
Addressing Tuesday’s meeting of the Physical Development strategic policy committee (SPC) of Clare County Council, Gillian McCann of Return, outlined that charity shops, civic sites and grounds belonging to sporting clubs are likely to come on stream for hosting reverse vending machines under the Deposit Return Scheme.
Nationwide, Return has 2,100 return points gone live, she confirmed. All retailers have “a legislative objective to comply with the scheme”. She revealed, “Fraud is one of the big challenges in the scheme, there is no similar scheme in Northern Ireland, the scheme has focused on how to mitigate against fraud, the bar codes can be used across multiple jurisdictions”.
Retailers have to “flush out all old stock from the supply chain, over the next four months there is a transition that is different in every retail outlet,” she stated. Shops are likely to bring in “big discounts” to get rid of their older stock, Gillian said. Advocacy, enforcement and getting people on board are important tasks presently, she added.
Bigger stores nationwide are now ordering their first batch of DRS volume stock, Gillian noted. “We expect the first transition to happen very quickly”.
Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF) flagged that small businesses feel “at a disadvantage” because they haven’t the space to house the reverse vending machine. She questioned if there would be an app available on phones to accumulate the vouchers. The scheme is “long overdue,” the Ballybeg resident maintained.
Chair of the SPC, Cllr John Crowe (FG) said he was “100 percent supportive” of the scheme. He raised concerns for small stores. “The small retailer is very worried out there, you’re looking at a €20k investment for these machines. There’s a lot of these products that would have a long date and be on shelves a lot longer than four months, the small retailer is going to be at a very big disadvantage because of the big guys have these machines in. People are going to look to the bigger outlets because they know the machine is here”.
In response, Gillian told the meeting that “many small and medium retailers are engaged in the scheme and have opted for a manual collection or reverse vended machine”. The cheapest or smallest machine ranges in cost from €11,000 to €12,000 but she calculated that €15,000 to €20,000 was “a good estimate of the total price for installation. The cheapest or smallest machine is 11k/12k, 15-20k is a good estimate of total price for installation. It is a producer responsibility scheme so the polluter pays is the principle, for putting product on the market the producer pays a scheme, the consumer pays a deposit and the retailer pays it to the consumer and Return pays it back to the consumer, the retailer is paid handling fees”.
Small retailers can avail of a grant for €6,000 to assist with the funding of a reverse lending machine, she said. “Many small retailers decide not to make the investment until they see the scheme go live, many just wait and see how the infrastructure evolves”.
She added, “Civic sites are very much in our sights for phase two, there are a plethora of different return point operators, sports clubs, tidy towns and civic sites are all expected to be in there”.
Green Party representatives in Clare have welcomed the introduction of the scheme. Bridget Ginnity (GP) who is a local election candidate in the Ennis Municipal District said, “I take part in the annual clean of the River Fergus with the Ennis Sub Aqua Club and can personally vouch for the large number of cans that are chucked in the river. Hopefully not as many will be thrown in when there is a value put on them. Even if some people continue to throw away bottles or cans, someone else is likely to collect them and claim the deposit”.
She added, “It’s much less carbon intensive to recycle than to produce plastic bottles and cans from scratch, so it’s good for the climate. Another big advantage is that almost all of the cans and bottles collected for recycling will be actually recycled whereas at present, only 80% are recycled because they’ve been contaminated by other waste”.
Lahinch based Cllr Liam Grant (GP) commented, “We need to replace our throwaway culture with a circular economy that recycles and reuses material. It is awful to see beautiful coastal areas like Lahinch and Doolin ruined by litter and this scheme will help motivate people to recycle bottles and cans”. Senator Roisin Garvey (GP) maintained, “The reverse vending machines couldn’t be easier to use”. She added, “Similar schemes have had great success in Europe, so now is our chance to get rubbish off our roads and into the reverse vending machines.”
