One in seven bottle return machines ‘out of order’

At least one in seven machines not working as our survey shows frustration with scheme, write Alan Caulfield and Caroline O’Doherty

● The minister responsible for the Deposit Return Scheme has admitted the number of times the machines are out of order is “not good enough”.

Circular Economy Minister Ossian Smyth made the comments as new figures from scheme operator Re-turn show that one in seven machines around the country are not working at any given time.

It comes as an Irish Independent survey found significant numbers of people are reporting machines out of order or rejecting their empty bottles or cans.

The government minister responsible for the Deposit Return Scheme has admitted the amount of time the machines are out of order is “not good enough”. Circular Economy Minister Ossian Smyth made the admission as new figures show that one in seven machines around the country are not working at any given time.

Scheme operator Re-turn said the 2,300 machines at shops around the country were running at an overall “uptime” of 86pc.

An environmental group that campaigned for the bottle and can recycling initiative has also said the amount of time the machines were out of order must improve so the public did not feel “shafted”.

It comes as an Irish Independent survey found one in six people (17pc) said that when they tried to use a reverse vending machine (RVM) to return their empties, it was not working. Just over one in five had problems with a working machine rejecting their containers.

Mr Smyth said Re-turn must reach 95pc to hold public support and to collect enough bottles and cans to hit recycling targets.

“The high-reliability machines are running at 90pc availability, but that’s not good enough either,” he said.

“It shouldn’t happen more than 5pc of the time [that they are unavailable] and that should be for emptying and cleaning.”

Environmental group Voice campaigned for years for the scheme, but said out-of-order machines could dent public support for the project.

“There’s no point saying the machines are available 86pc of the time if someone has tried repeatedly and their local machine is always out of order,” Colin O’Byrne of Voice said. “To them, it’s unavailable 100pc of the time.”

The Irish Independent survey revealed the impact out-of-order machines were having on the scheme, with just 25pc of people saying they kept their containers to try another machine later.

Mr Smyth said he understood the concerns. “It’s OK for me because I’m in Dublin and have a choice of return points,” he said. “For someone living in a rural location who has to travel further to find a machine, the machine they arrive at has to be working.”

He also acknowledged there was an issue with containers being rejected.

Mr S myth said this was mainly because non-eligible bottles and cans were still being sold, and people were mistakenly trying to return them.

“On June 1, it’s actually illegal to sell a drink which doesn’t have a Re-turn logo,” Mr Smyth said. “The people in charge of enforcing that are the local authorities. It will be their job to go into the shops, looking on the shelves and seeing if there’s anything with no logo on.”

Breaches are an offence under waste management law and risk a fine of up to €5,000.

Re-turn said it was happy with the uptake so far and that it had anticipated some teething problems.

“The network of over 2,300 machines is currently running at an uptime of 86pc. This reflects the time the machines are fully operational,” it said.

“Reasons for machines being temporarily down during the day include being full, being emptied, undergoing servicing or incorrect items inserted and needing attention.

“We are working closely with retailers and suppliers to support them with any operational issues and ensure optimal uptime for their machines.

“A Re-turn RVM quality team is currently visiting retailers nationwide to ensure RVMs are maintained correctly, optimally set up and staff are fully trained to manage container returns.”

The scheme began on February 1 and since then, retailers have had to charge a deposit of 15c or 25c on drinks sold in aluminium cans and plastic bottles, depending on size, with the deposit returned to the consumer when the empties are brought back.

Returns have increased steadily from two million containers in the first month to 20 million last month and more than 40 million so far this month.

More than €11m worth of vouchers have been issued to customers who returned them.

On average over a year, five million drinks are sold in bottles and cans every day, however. So the numbers need to increase substantially to hit the target of collecting 77pc of plastic bottles next year and 90pc by 2029.

“On Wednesday, we had 1.9 million returned in 675,000 transactions, so we’re still only seeing roughly three items return per transaction,” Mr Smyth said. “In a mature scheme, that tends to be around 14 per transaction.”

The Irish Independent carried out an online survey to gather people’s experiences of the scheme. Of 1,594 people who visited a machine in the previous 10 days, 17pc found it was out of order.

Where the return point visited had more than one machine, 57pc found all the machines were working while 25pc said at least one was working.

Of the 1,320 people who said the machine they visited was working, 79pc said it accepted most of their empties, but 21pc said it did not.

Of people left with empties because the machine was not working or rejected them, 56pc said they put them in an ordinary recycling bin instead and 25pc said they stored them to bring them to another machine later. Nineteen per cent of frustrated customers put them in a general waste bin, going against the whole point of the scheme.

Most people (66pc) spent their return vouchers immediately in the store they visited, 23pc kept them to spend later, and 11pc reclaimed the cash at the till.

Among everyone surveyed, 55pc did not think the scheme was working well, 39pc thought it was and 6pc had no opinion.

Faith in the scheme plummeted among people who visited a broken machine, with 84pc of them saying the scheme was not working well.

The Irish Independent carried out the survey using an online tool on its website over two days last week, and it was also shared on our social media channels. Respondents had to provide their name, email address and the location they visited. Percentages have been rounded up or down to the nearest per cent.

When asked for comments, the replies were mixed. Many expressed satis

‘More than €11m worth of vouchers have been issued to customers who have returned items’