Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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142. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of plastic bottles or aluminium cans sold in the State since the introduction of the deposit return scheme (DRS); the number of beverage containers which have been returned by the Irish public under the DRS; and the total value of deposits returned to the public in this period. [43222/24]

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Uptake of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) has been very positive to date and, since launch on 1 February, almost 615 million bottles and cans have been returned, with average daily rates now regularly exceeding 3 million containers. This equates to €106 million in deposits refunded to consumers, averaging just over €0.5 million per day.

As with most waste statistics, performance of the Deposit Return Scheme will be formally measured on an annual basis – i.e. number of units returned and recycled compared to the number of units placed on the Irish market in a given year. Placed on the market data captures the number of bottles and cans made available by producers for sale or distribution, not sales figures. Data in relation to the number of bottles and cans sold is not collected by the scheme. Re-turn will provide an interim report to me before the end of October on the performance of the scheme to date and this will include information on products placed on the market.