These reverse vending machines are popping up everywhere in Ireland at the moment.
The government is to add a recycling levy on cans and bottles. Every can will have a 15 Cents levy on it. Then you bring back your empties and put them in the machine which will scan it and issue you a receipt for you to be reimbursed at the till.
I think it's going to put a lot of money on eight cans.
It reminds me when I was a kid and I would take mineral bottles back to the newsagents or chippy for my 10 pence return. I might have even treated myself to some Caramac or Kayli. Happy day.
Which Yorkshire 1950s pop group is still going today? BEN SHAWS.
I would like manufacturers to be made to state on the tin or bottle how much we paid for the tin or bottle in the first place?
Do you think these reverse vending machines are a good idea or it just a waste of our time and money? I am sure the supermarkets will make a lot of money out of the scrap metals and plastics?
We take our recycling in a big polythene bag and throw it in recycling skips at the local recycling centre and pay 3 Euros to the man for the privilege.
In the words of Mrs Merton: " Let's have an heated debate!"
Well, I suppose that collecting them in that way and giving money back may help towards cutting down on the indiscriminate littering of cans in the streets and countryside. i do remember getting money back on bottles as a kid too. Not much but it seemed a lot to us back then.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree JayCee. I think we are being dictated to the masses yet again. We were so poor back then? Yet everything was affordable probably happier to. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHaving seen the number of cans and bottles which decorate the verges along the main road through our village I would welcome an army of small children picking them up to earn a bit of pocket money.
ReplyDeleteDetritus Tracy. Totally agree. The amount of cars I see throwing out rubbish.
ReplyDeleteYou PAY to have your recycling taken? That is crazy. Anyway - what worries me about recycling collections is this: How much of it is properly recycled? Does some of it end up being sent to distant countries? There's no transparency.
ReplyDeleteOur bin collection service was sold off by the county council and its up to the householder if they pay a private refuse collector or not. We take our rubbish and recycling to a private waste transfer station.
DeleteWhen you wash your recycling and use car fuel to take the recycling away. How much energy and money does it cost us?
Here, if you buy a 6 pack of beer in New York State, they add on a 60c deposit, which is returned to you, when you return the bottles. In Michigan, I believe it is 20c a bottle. In any case, it is one of those things that is simply done, like putting a quarter in an Aldi's shopping cart, knowing you'll get it back in the end. I think all states should be doing it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's like Covid Debby. Making people do what they are told.
DeleteI don't see it like that. It is an incentive to solve a problem. It decreases littering ( or encourages people to collect the litter,
Delete) and recycling is good for the environment.
I understand what your saying Debby. I'm probably more world weary and cynical than you and think that these supermarket chains are going to make lots of money in the process. Yet they will not inform us how much of the food or drink product cost us for the can ?
DeleteI guess that is where we are different. The deposit is set and you know upfront that it is 10 cents a can (or bottle). We know that we will get 10 cents each back when we return them
DeleteThe price of the soda is completely separate from the deposit. I can understand your misgivings.
It's 15 Cents for a 500 ML can and 25 Cents for a 550 can or bottle Debby. So that's 1.20 on 8 cans. What if you can't afford the extra tariff? I will give it a try and see what it's like. People generally don't like change.
DeleteThe people who live here have no idea of recycling and no amount of talking to them will help so I have given up. There is one large recycle bin that serves four units, (every block has the same), but several people use them as regular rubbish bins as well as filling the smaller household rubbish bin and when they have still more rubbish they dump it into the "green waste only" bins or any other bin close by that has a bit of room left in it. They don't even crush or tear up the cardboard boxes. Even the really big boxes that televisions come in. They just cram them in as far as they can and leave it at that. I get out there with my Stanley knife (box cutter) and slice it all so it fits.
ReplyDeleteThanks River. It annoys me that bottle banks never have rubbish bins for plastic bags or boxes or gloves. The wasps like them though.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, but left too late, too many people with bad habits, who don't care.
ReplyDeleteThanks Poppypatchwork. I just think it makes your shopping more expensive to buy.
DeleteIKEA installed the can and glass bottles slot machine a while ago..ahead of the game in these times. We separate our papers and card/cans and plastics/glass jars and bottles into three boxes stacked on an easily movable trolley...collected every week. Landfill once every four weeks..green waste every four weeks except for the winter ( we pay extra for that..£30 a year)
ReplyDeleteWe can take things to the cowp..was the tip, now the recycling centre , just need to book a time...all sorts of different skips there and containers for gas bottles, electric goods, bikes (which are refurbished) and a huge container with compost made from the green waste..good stuff it is, free, just pay £2 for the reusable bags to carry it in..4 at any one time and as many times as you need!
Thanks GZ. It seems that the powers that be wish to put the recycling on us. I think if they stopped producing plastic we wouldn't have half the problem.
DeleteIndeed...and paper, metal and glass recycle far easier
DeleteI believe clear glass is perfectly natural and can be buried in landfill without damaging the environment.
DeleteI think it's a marvellous idea and hope it inspires more people to recycle. I too remember the days we would take bottles back and get a refund. It's still the same here on most beer bottles. Not all brands refund though.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Not forgetting when food came in paper bags and you could burn it on the fire and the dustbin men took your other rubbish away cinders included.
ReplyDeleteBottles had return values when we were kids and local charities and service clubs used to have bottle drives a few times a year to collect off us (and other rural homesteads of course) as a way of raising funds without asking us to part with actual hard cash. Living in Denmark over 20 years ago, all the supermarkets had a returns bank at the back of the supermarket. Loads of people scoured the streets for returnables and the vouchers could be used at the checkout desk to pay for groceries. (Kept public places a lot cleaner than they might otherwise have been). I worked in a street of outdoor restaurants and whole families of some cultures would turn up - grandma would sit and guard the big stripey bags, and the kids would runup and down the street gathering up the empties. I imagine they made quite a supplement to their incomes and none of taxable.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Tigger Mum. The Denmark 🇩🇰 vouchers sound a great idea. I think Tesco in England use to give out Greenshield Stamps?
ReplyDeleteI am sure the supermarkets will make lots of money from the scrap metal which we have already paid for.
We have recycling stations in every supermarket for years now. Sometimes the queues are long and it appears that they are well used by all types of customers. The city council here has to issue annual reviews on how they recycle what.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago we lived in a small African country where the government introduced a compulsory fee with refund on all locally produced beer and soft drinks bottles. You should have seen the locals digging and climbing through the bushes and rocks. The place was sick and span clean within a week.
Thanks Sabine for that. Your small African story made me laugh. My late father told me that when he was growing up in Ireland him and his friends would take rats tails into the local council offices and they would pay them half a crown for bringing in the dead rats tails.
ReplyDelete