Back To The Fanta

Re-Turn Bottle Deposit at Aldi Greystones

aunching on February 1st, Ireland’s new Deposit Return Scheme will feel like a recycled recycling idea to Greystonians of a certain generation.

Back in those jumpers-for-goalposts days, it was returned glass bottles that earned you a reward.

In 2024, it’s plastic bottles along with aluminium or steel cans that will see your small deposit being popped back into your pocket whenever you return your empty, undamaged container.

All eligible containers will feature the Re-turn logo, and you can either bring your bottle or can back to the retailer or to one of the special reverse vending machines popping up at shops and supermarkets around the country, where you will get a voucher to redeem at the till.

It’s a fine idea, long overdue, and it should go some way to reducing the amount of discarded cans and plastic bottles on our streets, but, if we’re talking about incentivising that part of the population who don’t frequent recycling centres, why not glass bottles and even jam jars too?

And rather than a paper receipt system, surely the technology is there to have this all happening on our phones?

Still, it’s a step in the right direction, and until we miraculously evolve to the point where we don’t actually feel the need to buy single-use beverage bottles or cans – with over 800 million of the former and over 1 billion of the latter being crapped out each year for parched halfwits – here’s hoping a new generation will now be inspired to think twice before they turf.

You can find out more about the Deposit Return Scheme in the video below, or right here.