The Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) is looking for your views on how a new Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) should operate in Ireland.

DRS is a system used in other EU Member States and further afield to incentivise consumers to return their beverage containers for recycling or reuse. The DRS being introduced in Ireland is focused on plastic bottles and aluminium cans because too few of these are being captured for recycling by our current system (which could put Ireland in breach of EU legislation) and too many are being discarded as litter.

Ireland’s Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy [GB1] commits to introducing a DRS in Ireland. This public consultation is the first step on that journey. Alongside this consultation, DECC are publishing a report which evaluates Ireland’s current collection systems, in the context of new EU targets.