Deposit Return Scheme: Some customers charged for products that were not eligible for refund
Lidl Cans Gareth Chaney/collins Dublin Bottles On For Return Picture: Angiers And Machines Street, In Recycled Be To
The head of the company overseeing the deposit return machines at Irish supermarkets has said some customers have been charged deposits for products that they should not have been.
Re-Turn CEO Ciarán Foley said the deposit return scheme had seen a "solid start" despite teething issues in the early days of the scheme, which started on February 1.
Mr Foley said the vast majority of bottles and cans that have been rejected from the machines are products that were not part of the scheme, and customers should not have been charged a deposit for them.
He said there were "issues with multipacks and foreign importers' reregistering codes", so for the first week to 10 days of the scheme, "there were definitely products getting charged deposits that shouldn't have been".
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Mr Foley said that this issue has been rectified, but said there will be examples of people coming back to them having paid the deposit but are unable to get it back.
"In that instance, we've asked them to work with the retailer; we've asked the retailers to pay them the deposit and then claim it back from us," he told RTÉ's .
Concerning multipacks, a number of customers have complained that because the individual items are without the returns logo, they would have to take back the plastic wrapper or box in which they came in.
However, Mr Foley said that these customers should not have been charged the deposit on multipack products until the logoed stock arrived in stores.
"I acknowledged that was one of the things that some retailers unfortunately got wrong and were charging deposits and that's where customers could be left with cans with no barcodes" he said.
"Again, talk to the retailer, they should sort it out, and if they can't sort it out, come on to us and we'll resolve it."
Mr Foley acknowledged that it was a "big rigmarole" to reclaim 15c, but said that Re-Turn anticipated some difficulties in the early days of the scheme.
However, Mr Foley added that despite initial "teething issues" the deposit return scheme is off to a very "solid start".
He said that Ireland benchmarks itself against the Slovakian scheme, which went live in 2022, as it is a similar scheme to here and they have a similar population. Mr Foley said we're "tracking well ahead of where they are".
In the first month of the Slovakian scheme, they took back 264,000 items, while Irish customers have returned around 2.9m units since February 1.
"We actually took 353,000 on Saturday alone and another 340,000 yesterday, so we're really seeing a great pickup now," Mr Foley added.