Dr. Dominic Hogg:

Many thanks for inviting me today. The company I work for carried out a study for the Government in 2009. We were reviewing international policy and this was based primarily on a review of literature. At the time we felt unable to call out definitively whether we should have a deposit scheme. Since 2009, we have conducted many different studies, all of them in the public domain. Interestingly, none of them was covered in the review undertaken by Repak. This has been rather interesting. We carried out those for DG Environment, Zero Waste Scotland, UK-based NGOs, Spanish NGOs and the Catalan waste administration. We are currently working with the Maltese Government, which said it wants to implement a deposit scheme, and the Kosovan Government which wants to implement one. Both Serbia and Latvia have announced they want to do it. We worked in Connecticut to improve a Bill there. Why are people doing this? What are the benefits to the system? Why would I recommend that the Irish Government do this if I had the chance again?

There are four key benefits to a deposit scheme. The first relates to the increase in recycling one will get in an effective scheme for beverage containers. That has consequences in terms of greenhouse gas benefits. It is particularly important for plastic containers. Increasingly, Ireland, along with other EU member states, is moving its residual waste management away from landfill into thermal processes. From a climate change perspective, putting plastic into a thermal process is possibly the worst thing one can do, especially as the background intensity of the energy being generated is declining over time as one seeks to address climate change objectives.

The second point is that litter will be reduced. The selective citation of the OECD 2004 study, which I know very well, having critically reviewed it for the OECD a few years later, states - I will quote it selectively - that deposit schemes will achieve an 80% reduction in litter of beverage containers. The Repak study says that beverage containers only contribute 2.5% and that the figure may be decreasing. What is acceptable here? We have a major problem in terms of litter and the flow of that litter into the marine environment. We know that this is a massive global problem. We can sit here and imagine that 2.5% or whatever the figure is. Imagine that the figure is decreasing, although I would dispute it. Even on Ireland's own econometric analysis, the t-statistics in terms of the trend in its own analysis are not significant. It is a random walk at the moment. We do not even know that the percentage is actually reducing. There is an issue here in terms of the litter.

The other point is the quality of the material. Ireland is seeing the diminishing availability of its markets. Repak's own data have shown the level of contamination of recycling material in Ireland. We have exactly the same problem in the UK and I hope that this will serve as a wake-up call in the UK and Ireland. We will not see a reduction in the recycling rate. Ireland can count that in its packaging recycling figures and it would be incredibly sensible if it did that as it would be improving the likelihood of getting to the 55% recycling rate it will have to achieve for plastics under the new circular economy package for plastic packaging. How will Ireland do it? It is at 33% at the moment, or is it? When measured against the actual recycling figures that it will have to report under the new package, I really doubt that it is. Ireland will have to report what is sent for final recycling and it will see a hit on its existing reported rate. That will go down and Ireland will have to do better.

What about the companies whose corporate social responsibility, CSR, objectives are to use more recycled content? This is interesting. We have had lots of discussions with them and some of them say that they do not like deposit refund schemes. We asked them where they get their material to meet CSR objectives of recycled content of 25%, 50%, etc.? Norway is the answer. This is interesting because it has come out of the deposit scheme. Everyone wants the quality of the material that those schemes provide. Why are we seeing the brands starting to shift? I understand why industry may initially feel a little threatened by this type of measure. I particularly understand it in the case of Ireland and the UK because we both have schemes where the producer responsibility scheme does not cover the full costs of the packaging recycling service. Therefore, we are in a uniquely interesting situation where the costs go up. Norway, funnily enough, has very high recycling rates of aluminium and there is a zero fee for the aluminium packaging producers. It is even thinking of giving a rebate because the value of the material more than offsets the costs of collecting it.

Therefore, there are a number of different reasons to do this. I understand the objections. I have seen them before. However, we have seen brands becoming more aware. They realise that having their bottles washed up on pristine beaches all over the world is not good PR.