Ireland seems to be getting ahead of the DRS game as its bottles and cans recycled hits new milestone of 1.2 million a day.
The Irish Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) has officially hit the ground running. Ireland’s DRS has reached the momentous milestone of 1.2 million drinks containers returned and recycled since its official launch date.
Re-turn, the company heading up DRS in Ireland, recorded their highest collection day on 29 March with the company expecting another huge uptake for the next Bank Holiday weekend and well into the summer.
Ciarán Foley, Re-turn CEO, spoke to Newstalk Breakfast stating how pleased he was with progress. Foley said: “We’ve made a brilliant start – we’re up to a million a day now, we only did two in the whole of February.” Foley added how Ireland were “tracking themselves against other countries and are ahead of where we need to be.”
Ireland Deposit Return Scheme succeeds in hitting BIG targets
DRS Ireland was launched on 1 February with over 2,300 Reverse Vending Machines accessible across the country. Since then, a total of 21 million bottles and cans have been returned.
Ireland has met some hefty targets set by the EU and the Minister of State at Government of Ireland, Ossian Smyth.
The EU is expecting Ireland to reach a target of 77% of bottles and cans collected by 2025. This figure must then rise to 90% by 2029.
Ossian Smyth has stated the importance of Ireland reaching a target of returning €1 million in deposits to consumers every day. According to The Irish Independent, only €1.2 million deposits were returned in the first 40 days of the DRS launch.
UK business remain concerned
Ireland’s DRS success is a stark contrast compared to the UK which still lacks an aligned DRS strategy. The uncertainty around the timing and parameters of any England scheme are creating concern. All we know now is that an aligned UK scheme is on the cards… for 2027. Or maybe a little after that.
Some will be glad, of course. Despite around 69% of businesses gearing up and being ready for a DRS introduction, four in ten are less than keen. A recent survey by GS1 suggests lack of awareness was the biggest factor for hesitancy. Around 26% of business say they have no idea about DRS at all.
The Government was urged to finally implement this system in the UK by the Food & Drink Federation. It wants the Government “to ensure certainty for drinks manufactures by implementing a single, interoperable UK DRS as soon as possible, aligning scope and labelling requirements in all four nations.”
Businesses that are trying to prepare for DRS may not know when or exactly where the scheme’s impact will happen. However it does, it will require extremely close control and good planning around artwork, labelling and packaging specification management.
If your business is planning how to adapt, align and evolve your packaging management and planning, 4Pack’s experts can help. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
