Dr. Dominic Hogg:

I will respond to Dr. Walker's comments first. It is very welcome news that the industry bodies are developing a circular economy. It is important to recognise the opportunity. The company I worked for recently carried out a major review of waste statistics in environments where deposit schemes apply. The initial executive summary was pretty stinging, because we felt we had been here so many times before. Sadly it is very difficult to do comparative analysis on European waste data. In a discussion of the effect of a deposit scheme on packaging statistics, another question arises. How much of the total packaging consists of beverage containers?

The other issue is that when we are talking about total packaging and what the effect of a deposit scheme is, we have to ask how much of the total packaging is actually beverage containers. It is not massive. That is interesting, because when we talk about the collection system and the effect of it, we have to think about what is in the collection service. All the paper, card, steel cans used for food, glass jars not used for beverages and plastic bottles not used for beverages are all still there, as well as all the other types of plastic. The idea that some system is made redundant or that its economics are radically altered is not true. We recently did some analysis of this for UK non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and the net effect in terms of local government service tends to be marginally positive because of the cost of the disposal on the residual side and the marginal benefit in terms of litter clean up costs. The cost of dealing with litter is not completely eliminated, of course. I believe that point is overplayed.

I agree with the point about carbon if it was only justified on that basis. The interesting thing is that we are starting to learn more about what the externalities associated with the disamenity effects of litter are, and we are starting to understand what they are in a marine environment. That opens up a whole new area of research. Litter is never both on the land and in the sea at the same time. The same piece of litter moves from one place to the other, and there is a large amount of research that needs to be carried out to help us understand that better and to understand those externalities. We do know that the effect is big. It is much more important than climate change externalities on a tonne-for-tonne basis. If an impact assessment of this nature is carried out it is not the case that it stands or falls on the climate change impacts, in our view. It has to take into account the disamenity and the impacts associated with litter, which is something we are getting a better handle on.

On the question of the markets, Ireland, the UK, the United States and other countries are suddenly getting a wake-up call that we are not collecting stuff very well and are not getting quality material out. We are trying to sell this to anyone who will take it, and some people are saying that they are fed up and do not want to take it anymore. In the context of a circular economy, if there is 30% to 40% contamination of plastics - and that happens - what can be done if one is trying to develop a reprocessing industry here? If 30% or 40% of every tonne that comes in has to be thrown away over €100 per tonne will have to be spent to get rid of it. If it is shipped to China what is the disposal cost? It is peanuts. The transport of the material to China is effectively funded. If the quality of the material is better it is more likely to stay here and it is more likely that people will come forward with a view to actually using it and actually developing the markets in reprocessing here. This is not a straightforward issue.

On the final points about the costs of recycling, when we did the work back in 2009 we had some very interesting discussions with Repak. I welcome Mr. Tony O'Sullivan, who is at the back of the room. Our discussions concerned the cost of recycling in the Republic of Ireland. We did not ask what Repak pays to support recycling. That is a different matter. We were focused on the cost. We carried out a piece of analysis, because - and I do not wish to take this into a completely different area - we feel that Ireland has a relatively expensive system because it is based on the open market, which in our view leads to inefficiencies in the delivery of the service. I know that is a hot topic here and it opens up other issues. The fact is that we do not have a really good handle on the cost in all cases.

I will make a final point on small retailers.