Binmen, street cleaners and hospitality sector staff are among those who are making some extra money by collecting unreturned bottles and taking them to Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) machines, the Government has been told.
Information received by the Department responsible for the scheme has revealed that enterprising council and private sector staff are going to the trouble to collect Re-turn viable bottles from bins, fast-food joins and cafes and other collection points.
The plastic, aluminium or steel bottles are worth between 15-25c and just one bin bag full of Re-turn eligible containers could be worth between €7 to €10 euros. There have also been widespread instances of people, including homeless people, rummaging in public bins to collect the containers. A number of public bodies, including Dublin City Council and Irish Rail, have taken measures to stop people rummaging in bins for bottles and cans, as official figures suggest a significant portion of consumers are not recycling containers through the scheme.
Recent complaints received by Ossian Smyth, the minister responsible for the DRS, show that the practice is continuing, with members of the public reporting that both council workers and restaurant staff are collecting bottles and cans for themselves.
One complainant who wrote to Eamon Ryan, the outgoing environment minister, said they had witnessed council staff removing bottles from street bins as they emptied them, adding: “That is a nice little side line and tax-free bonus for council workers.”
They also expressed their “absolute revulsion” regarding the “insane and shockingly ill thought out scheme”. They criticised “little fat men” running the company behind the scheme, who they claimed were “making absolutely silly money” while the public and the environment pay the price.
Another person wrote to Mr Smyth to report that restaurants that offer table service were charging customers deposits on bottles and cans, but then collect the empty containers from tables and claim the deposits themselves.
The same individual also alleged that businesses – especially fast-food takeaways – were charging a deposit on imported containers without the Re-turn logo, pocketing the money for themselves.
“I have seen this in a number of places,” they wrote. “They continue to sell cans which are produced in Denmark.
“I think we have left this open to abuse and no checks are being performed on the takeaway businesses who open later in the day.
“We also have a number of small shops still sourcing their drink cans and bottle products from the UK, and they are still charging the DRS charge back onto the customer,” they alleged.
In October, Eamon Ryan received another email from an individual who complained that public bins were being “ransacked” and rubbish was being strewn on the streets by people looking for returnable bottles and cans.
He was also told: “Machines either do not work or are blocked by people who have large bin bags full of stuff. All the receipts issued by their machines are non-recyclable,” the person added.
Earlier complaints seen by the Irish Mirror included photographs from an individual purportedly showing two binmen inserting “hundreds” of drinks containers into a reverse vending machine in Kildare.
They had allegedly picked these out of the commercial or domestic bins of customers who had discarded them without reclaiming their deposits.