Consumers embrace Ireland’s first bottle deposit return scheme

Ciava Dunning and John Eustace at a Re-turn reverse vending machine. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll/The Guardian

After initial consumer confusion and irritation, Ireland’s first ever deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and cans has finally been embraced by the public, with 111m containers returned in August – up from 2m in February when the scheme launched – new data shows.

Re-turn, which was mandated by the Irish government, to implement the scheme as part of a bid to meet EU 90% recycling targets, said that in the eight months since February, 630m containers have been deposited at reverse vending machines up and down the country.