On 1 February Ireland became the 15th European country to introduce a Deposit Return System (DRS) for single-use beverage packaging, with the system aiming to achieve EU recycling targets of 77% by 2025 and 90% by 2029. Waste technology firm Sensoneo is a partner in the project with its IT solution, which provides the centralised infrastructure for the DRS system in Ireland.
Currently, approximately 60% of single-use beverage packaging is being collected in Ireland for recycling purposes. The Deposit Return Scheme in Ireland has the potential to reduce littering and increase Ireland’s recycling rates by 30%. These numbers will result in reduced landfill waste and significantly support the protection of the environment. The Irish DRS administrator is the company Re-turn, the entire scheme is powered by a software solution from Sensoneo. This end-to-end and ready-to-integrate software for DRS gathers data from all sources and enables seamless integration between all stakeholders within the process chain. SW is built on cloud-based infrastructure and is agnostic with any return vending machine. Ireland is already the sixth country with the software solution from Sensoneo. The company won all the last 6 tenders for DRS in Europe, most recently in Austria, and successfully implemented the IT solution for the world’s largest centralized DRS in Romania, and DRS systems in Slovakia, Malta, and Hungary. The IT system for the Irish DRS was implemented in only 11 months since the project kicked off in March 2023.
The Deposit Return Scheme is a very effective circular economy initiative that helps countries create a closed-loop recycling system guaranteeing the material is returned and recycled into new drink containers. The DRS scheme in Ireland includes PET plastic bottles and aluminum cans between 150ml and 3 litres. A deposit of 15 cents will apply to containers from 150ml to 500ml inclusive and a deposit of 25 cents for containers over 500ml to 3 litres inclusive. Consumers can choose to receive their refund against a store-bought purchase or in cash. The variable deposit fees reflect the size of the drinks containers and are reflective of the value of the material.
