Irish consumers missed out on €66.7m in uncashed bottle deposit returns last year
Deposit Return Scheme
(DRS).
Re-turn's 2024 annual report shows the failure to redeem these depositswas the chief reason behind the State-backed firm recording a pretax surplus of €51.3 million last year.
Established by the Government,
Re-Turn
began its DRS operations on February 1st, 2024 with the aim to significantly increase the recycling rates of bottles and cans.
Last year, 877.85 million containers were returned, made up of 433.2 million plastic bottles and 444.6 million cans.
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Re-turn recorded revenues of €114.4 million in 2024. This included the €66.7 million in unredeemed deposits and €47.7 million made up of €17.2 million from the sale of material and €30.5 million from 'producer fees'.
The company's 2024 costs totalled €62.2 million, made up of direct collection and recycling costs of €46.5 million and administrative expenses of €15.7 million, which included a spend of €4.6 million on 'marketing, communications, and public awareness'.
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The report says 'unredeemed deposits are an expected and routine scenario for deposit return schemes and it was anticipated that in the initial transition period redemptions would be low and therefore there would be a high level of unredeemed deposits'.
The report for the not-for-profit states, 'the fees from unredeemed containers are being reinvested in a number of ways'.
These include paying off initial scheme set-up costs, infrastructure development, consumer education campaigns and contributing to its legally required contingency reserve.
Income from unredeemed deposits 'is expected to significantly reduce as the scheme reaches its targeted redemptions of 90 per cent in the coming years'.
Re-turn chief executive Ciarán Foley said: 'Thanks to the incredible buy-in and adoption from the Irish public, 877 million containers were returned through DRS in 2024, equating to an average 66 per cent post-transition period recycling rate.
'The seasonality of the soft drinks market was reflected in some even higher months, such as in August when the return rate reached 75 per cent. Every 1 per cent increase equates to around 19 million containers.'
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