Sir, – We refer to Stephen Collins's assertion that politicians should consider a plastic bottle deposit and refund scheme which appears to be based on the logic that if it worked for the plastic bag levy, it would work for plastic bottles ("Politicians should look at a plastic bottle refund scheme", Opinion & Analysis, April 5th).
The comparison is flawed as a deposit and refund scheme requires extensive and expensive infrastructure to implement, costing hundreds of millions to establish and administer. We have estimated a cost of €120 million to set up and €50 million to operate annually in Ireland, part or all of which would be inevitably passed on to the consumer.
Ireland has a higher recycling rate than Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom. The UK may be considering a scheme , which is not surprising given their performance at the lower end of the EU packaging recycling league table. In contrast, Ireland’s current recycling rate of plastic bottles is 70 per cent.
We estimate that 293,000 tonnes of plastic packaging was placed on the market in 2017, and of that, approximately 45,000 tonnes account for plastic bottles. We are currently recycling approximately 70 per cent of this 45,000. The other 30 per cent is going to recovery because some bottles are contaminated or they are not being placed in the correct recycling bins and therefore cannot be recycled. Therefore, unrecycled plastic bottles in Ireland account for just 5 per cent of all our plastics.
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If you consider the cost of purchasing reverse vending machines, the disruption to retail outlets, the additional carbon footprint from collecting material, the cost consumers would have to pay, the impact on household waste collection and the fact that a deposit return scheme would duplicate and conflict with much of the work currently taking place, is it worth all of this effort to solve just 5 per cent of our plastics recycling problem?
I believe there are far more pressing matters at hand. We should be placing our energy into solutions that solve long-term problems, like demanding the elimination of over packaging of materials, reducing in packaging, reuse of packaging and creation of a market for plastic recyclates in Europe. – Yours, etc,
SÉAMUS CLANCY,
Chief Executive,
Repak Ltd,
Red Cow Interchange
Estate,
Ballymount Road,
Clondalkin, Dublin 22.