Re-turn sees can-do attitude applied to recycling single use plastics

The Re-turn deposit return scheme launched this year may have seemed somewhat unnecessary given that we can already recycle our hard and soft plastics in our green bins. However, the scheme aims to increase the recycling of single-use plastics, which are often used on the go and not brought home to recycle.

The Single Use Plastics Directive is the main driver for the introduction of Deposit Return, says Ciaran Foley, CEO of Re-turn.

“Currently, approximately 40 per cent of drinks containers – around 800 million – are not being recycled,” he explains. “Ireland needs to achieve the EU separate recycling targets of 77 per cent by 2025, and 90 per cent by 2029, and deposit return is a proven successful solution to achieving these targets.”

Closing the circle

Colette Devey, partner and consumer market sector lead at EY, says there were multiple reasons to try to capture single-use plastic in this way.

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“A couple of things were happening with these plastics – to start, littering, so the plastic ends up on the streets, then in waterways and sea,” says Devey. “Something needed to be done to reduce the amount of plastic in the water. However, even if people put plastics in the bin, it was getting incinerated.

“The scheme is about driving better recycling and reducing the creation of urgent plastic by introducing a supplementary scheme to the green bins that would drive circularity.”

Getting started

A significant number of challenges might be expected in undertaking and successfully rolling out a scheme of the size of Re-turn nationally, although Devey says that wasn’t the case.

“It wasn’t so much that there were challenges but it’s worth recognising this is a complex undertaking,” she says. “There were three big cohorts to engage. Firstly, producers – there are hundreds of producers of drink products that are producing them in single-use plastic and need to be part of the ecosystem, such as bar coding and identifying the bottles that would be introduced into the scheme. The producers are bearing the cost of this.

“Next, there are circa 4,000 retailers registered for the return scheme. Within that number, there are various types of retailers which have different expectations. For example, large grocery retailers have to invest in the infrastructure to install the return vending machines. Smaller retailers have an exemption to the scheme due to their size.

“And then there are middle-size retailers that don’t have the opportunity to introduce the vending machines but still need to develop a system for bringing back bottles and cans manually.”

The third category is consumers, for whom the scheme involves significant behavioural change.

“People are used to managing recycling differently and are being asked to act differently, and the scheme has a cost related to it with regard to the deposit,” says Devey. “It’s really impressive that by the launch date, all these moving parts were aligned and the scheme launched on time.”

Public reception

The introduction of the deposit return scheme requires a big shift in how members of the public approach the recycling of drinks containers in plastic bottles and aluminium cans, says Foley.

“One of Re-turn’s key priorities has been to provide awareness and education on how the scheme operates and engages with consumers to ensure and gain support for such a significant circular economy initiative that will not only protect our environment for the next generation but also reduce litter and help achieve our EU Recycling targets,” he adds.

“We have seen significant positive uptake from the public since launch and collection figures are tracking well against our internal targets. As our journey towards a more sustainable future continues, the deposit return scheme will continue to evolve, and we are grateful to the public who have embraced this initiative.”

How do we compare to other EU members?

As the scheme was only launched two months ago, and there will be a period of phasing out bottles and cans with a longer shelf life, Devey says it is difficult to judge how the scheme is operating in comparison to other countries yet – older bottles and cans will be not be phased out until the end of May; however, early reports are very positive, she says.

Foley says there has been a solid start to the scheme, with 15.8 million containers already returned.

“For context, this compares favourably to a similar scheme in Slovakia which had collected eight million containers by the end of its second month in operation,” he adds.