Out of order and inaccessible: TDs tell minister problems persist with Deposit Return Scheme

On Saturday, 806,000 people returned 2.3 million drinks bottles and cans, bringing to 70.6 million the number of empties returned since the scheme began on February 1.

However, sales since then were over 400 million drinks, so the number of returns needs to increase substantially to hit the target of a 77pc return rate next year.

Minister for the circular economy, Ossian Smyth, told the Oireachtas Environment Committee the public was embracing the scheme.

Saturday’s haul came after a steady and significant increase in transactions over recent weeks, he said.

“There were always going to be challenges associated with introducing the scheme,” he said.

“Re-turn is working very proactively on an improvement programme with retailers and reverse vending machine (RVM) suppliers and RVM availability is getting better as a result.”

Fianna Fáil TD Christopher O’Sullivan told the meeting his local machine was out of order on his first attempt to use it.

It worked on his second visit, but it was understandable that people were frustrated.

He said people on fixed-price plans for their household recycling bin were also unhappy at “paying on the double” as they saved no money from having lighter bins.

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said he was hearing many complaints from constituents while out on canvassing.

“They arrive to the shop with bags full of bottles - they didn’t go by car, they went on the bus – the machine’s broken and then they’re trying to pick up shopping. People are very frustrated,” he said.

He asked what efforts were being made to deal with the problem of single use drinks bottles at source rather than relying on recycling which was only a partial solution.

Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said accessibility was still a problem for people with disabilities.

“There are no braille instructions, there are no voice instructions and the slot is too high up to retrieve a bottle that is rejected,” she said.

“The Irish Wheelchair Association were not even consulted on this.”

Mr Smyth said a consultative forum had been set up by scheme operators Re-turn but he was not certain that it had met yet.

The minister agreed that the best solution to plastic bottle problem was to avoid them.

“The best thing to do is don’t buy a bottle of fizzy drink; number two, refill your bottle, and third is bring it back and recycle it,” he said.

Mr Smyth updated the committee on a range of waste reduction measures.

He said he would talk to Education Minister Norma Foley about reducing waste in the hot meals for schools programme.

The programme is under fire for bombarding children with disposable water bottles, excessive packaging and one-size-fits-all portions that were too big for junior classes and were half-eaten.

On disposable vapes, he said he was determined to ban them but was waiting for a declaration from the EU that a ban would not breach single market rules.