Household recycling of equal standard to Re-turn – IWMA

Cans and bottles disposed in household bins are recycled to the same standard as those processed through the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), the organisation representing waste management companies has said.

It follows comments by Re-turn CEO Ciaran Foley yesterday claiming that containers placed in household recycling bins were being “downcycled” and were inferior in quality to DRS materials.

The Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) said it was “disappointed” by Mr Foley’s comments and disputed the information he provided during an interview on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh.

“Plastic bottles and cans are recycled in the same way regardless of whether they are placed in your home bin or in a reverse vending machine. In both instances, bottles are recycled into bottles and cans are recycled into cans,” said a spokesperson for the IWMA.

“We want to reassure our customers and the general public that if they wish to save themselves a trip to their reverse vending machine, by placing plastic bottles or cans in their home recycling bin, they will be properly recycled,” he added.

Mr Foley said yesterday that some people who were disposing of containers through household waste did not realise that the “best way to recycle” was through the DRS.

“In order to go fully circular and to go bottle-to-bottle, you have to achieve a 95% quality of recyclate. If you put it in your mixed dry recycling, we’re not getting anywhere near that. It still gets recycled, but it gets downcycled,” he said.

“If you keep it separate and put it through the machine, you’re actually achieving a 98% quality, it obviously gives the fully circularity, bottle-to-bottle recycling. I think a lot of people maybe don’t realise that.”

The IWMA disputes this claim and says PET plastic and aluminium from bottles and cans placed in household waste is recycled in the same way and sometimes in the same place as material from the DRS.

While PET plastic is mixed in bales with other plastics when it comes from household waste bins, a process of secondary sorting separates it and allows bottle-to-bottle recycling, the IWMA said..

The organisation said it contacted RTÉ after Mr Foley’s interview with David McCullagh, seeking a right of reply.

‘Better material quality’

A spokesman for Re-turn insisted that mixed dry recycling does not deliver the same outcome for containers as the DRS.

“The DRS captures bottles and cans separately at source, producing a cleaner, higher-quality and lower-contamination material stream than mixed dry recycling. This is essential for closed-loop recycling, including bottle-to-bottle and can-to-can recycling,” he said.

“Mixed household recycling, by its nature, exposes materials to greater contamination and quality loss. For PET bottles and aluminium cans, the DRS is designed to achieve higher collection rates and better material quality that can remain in the circular economy for longer.”