THE COMPANY OVERSEEING Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme has defended itself following criticism made in the Dáil claiming that almost 90% of the plastic that is collected is being “needlessly” shipped around the world rather than recycled domestically.

Scheme operator Re-Turn said the vast majority of the plastic currently has to be transported abroad because it has not been financially viable to recycle plastic bottles into new drink containers in Ireland.

A spokesperson for the company said that Ireland “does not have the facilities to fully recycle” plastic bottles and aluminium cans that are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) material into new, ‘food-safe’ drink containers.

It’s because – until the scheme was established last year – there was no central operator handling recycled plastics and “no facility in Ireland” can recycle a higher quality type of the raw material.

But the company hopes that the Deposit Return Scheme is creating “steady supply of high-quality” material, which it said is “essential for setting up the necessary infrastructure in Ireland”.

Re-Turn made its comments in response to a statement by Sinn Féin TD for Cavan Monaghan, Matt Carthy, who said this week that it was a “scandal” that the vast majority of waste leaves Ireland as part of the recycling process.

“By June of this year 17,000 tonnes of plastic will have been collected under the scheme,” Carthy said.

“But only 3,400 of that will have been recycled in Ireland. That means that 88% of plastic collected under this ‘environmental’ scheme is actually being shipped off to locations across the world.”

Carthy instead proposed a company in his own constituency of Cavan-Monaghan as being in a position to collect and recycle the material.

“Creating local employment, contributing to the Irish economy – providing an environmentally sound point to recycle plastic collected in Ireland,” he added.

The Deposit Return Scheme sees people pay extra for their drinks in bottles and cans but they can reclaim this afterwards in machines in supermarkets. In February, it hit a milestone of one billion returned drinks containers.

Carthy said the amount shipped abroad was “madness” and also “ran contrary” to the environmental objective that the scheme is meant to address. The TD’s office said he had received the figures from industry sources.

When contacted by The Journal, Re-Turn did not dispute Carthy’s figure of 88% plastic shipped abroad and outlined that most of the material currently goes to the UK and Europe.

A spokesperson for Re-Turn said that Ireland “does not have the facilities to fully recycle” plastic bottles and aluminium cans made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) material into new, food-safe drink containers.

The flakes from these recycled plastics are regarded as of higher quality and can be used as a raw material in various industries for creating new products, such as polyester fibres, new bottles or packaging materials.

“A key step in fully recycling PET plastic bottles is turning them into food-grade plastic pellets, but no facility in Ireland can currently do this,” the Re-Turn spokesperson told The Journal.

The spokesperson added that while some facilities in Ireland can partially recycle plastic from the Deposit Return Scheme by processing it into PET flakes, the machinery required to turn these flakes into new drink bottles are not currently in operation in Ireland.

This means that the “majority of material is sent to fully licensed recycling facilities in Europe and the UK”, the spokesperson said.

“The best way to change this is by making local bottle to bottle recycling financially viable. The Deposit Return Scheme is contributing to this by ensuring a steady supply of high-quality recylate material, which is essential for setting up the necessary infrastructure in Ireland and meeting EU recycling targets,” the Re-Turn spokesperson said.