Sir, – With much media coverage, our new and ingeniously titled recycling initiative “Re-Turn” has launched. Whereas the coverage was more focused on explaining its convoluted system, I couldn’t help but ask why it is here in the first place.
As a good citizen, I dutifully crush cans and bottles for my green bin. This is sent off to a well-paid recycling group whose job it is to reintroduce these materials back into the system.
Apparently, only a fraction of these materials I pay the privilege to crush are actually recycled. So, what to do? Encourage the recycling groups to up their game? Incentivise new machinery or tooling to bring this fraction up to the levels of the European average?
No. Let’s introduce a whole new scheme involving extra work for the public. Crushing cans will be a no-no and so more space will be taken up at home and in these expensive drop-off units. Incentivise with a voucher? Great – but one that can only be used at that store (great news for repeat business, I’m sure).
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And what of small producers? Let’s force them to subscribe to a system that renders all their current packaging obsolete and a cost on each item that will eat into their already small margins.
And publicans who sell cans? They’d better invest in new storage space for all those uncrushed cans too.
These are all the reasons a similar scheme in Scotland suffered a crushing defeat last year with millions being lost by those participating in the scheme.
It is ironic that a Government being accused of “kicking the can down the road” on green initiatives is actively encouraging us to do just that. – Yours, etc,
EMMET MULLINS,
Castleknock,
Co Dublin.
