Why do people hate Re-turn so much?
People often joke “only in Ireland” and honestly, there’s some truth to it. Bottle deposit return schemes have been running smoothly across Europe for over 30 years, especially in Scandinavia, yet Ireland still can’t seem to get it together.
And when the machines are actually working, the scanning system is absolutely horrendous. Perfectly valid barcodes aren’t recognised, and you end up having to reinsert the same container over and over just to get it accepted. It’s more frustrating than it’s worth.
Today alone, multiple machines were out of service across Cork city: Lidl Cornmarket, Tesco St. Paul’s, Tesco Express on South Main St., and Dunnes on Patrick St.
For a system that’s supposed to encourage recycling and is making a lot of money, it’s doing a pretty poor job of being reliable.