Ireland’s Container Deposit Success Sets a Regional Example

Ireland

A person places a can into a deposit return machine that displays a refund value.

February 1, 2024

Launch date

A role model for the British Isles

Customer

DRSI CLG, trading as Re-turn, is a company limited by guarantee and was established by beverage producers and retailers in order to fulfill their obligations under the Separate Collection (Deposit Return Scheme) Regulations 2024.

The new program brings together all parties involved in the manufacture, sale, and consumption of beverages and has proven successful internationally in increasing collection rates.

Project description

On February 1, 2024, Ireland became the 16th European country to introduce a container deposit system for single-use beverage packaging. Just over a year later, the 1 billionth container was returned at Lidl Ireland Kilcarbery, Dublin, on Tuesday, February 4, 2025 – an impressive achievement for a country with a population of 5.3 million.

Following challenges with DRS implementation in Scotland, the smooth introduction and effective operation of the Irish system in its first year serve as a role model for other countries in the region, such as England and Wales, where a container deposit system is expected to be implemented in the near future.

The container deposit system is helping to build a cleaner Ireland by reducing cross-contamination, ensuring higher-quality materials, and enabling repeated recycling. A plastic bottle can be recycled up to seven times, while aluminum cans can be recycled indefinitely.

The DRS program in Ireland includes PET plastic bottles and aluminum cans ranging from 150 ml to 3 liters. A deposit of 15 cents applies to containers between 150 ml and 500 ml, while a deposit of 25 cents applies to containers over 500 ml up to 3 liters.

One of the cornerstones of the entire system is the IT solution provided by Sensoneo, a global technology company with a proven track record in DRS IT system implementations across eight countries. Sensoneo’s end-to-end, integration-ready software for DRS gathers data from all sources and enables seamless integration among all stakeholders across the process chain. The software is built on a cloud-based infrastructure and is compatible with any reverse vending machine.

DRS Ireland in numbers

(as of April 8, 2025)

3,200+

active collection points (Over 2,600 with Reverse Vending Machines and 600 with manual collection)

9,886

registered products

1,227,178,901

collected containers through RVMs

Impact

An interesting aspect of the Irish DRS is the ongoing expansion to new collection points to bring recycling closer to people. These include airports, hospitals, prisons, stadiums, public events, government offices, large companies, corporations, and community collection points. Since Return for Children launched in June, beverage containers have been donated to the initiative at public events, raising €90,000 to date. Return for Children was created to support six national children’s charities: Barnardos Ireland, Barretstown, Childline by ISPCC, Jack and Jill, LauraLynn Children’s Hospice, and Make-A-Wish Ireland. Collectively, these six charities support more than 165,000 vulnerable and seriously ill children across Ireland.

“Technology plays a central role in the success of Ireland’s container deposit program, and Sensoneo has been an outstanding partner in delivering the robust IT infrastructure behind it. Their platform allows us to manage the system with accuracy, efficiency, and transparency across every stage, from collection to reporting, giving us the confidence to scale quickly and deliver meaningful results. Together, we’re building a reliable foundation that supports Ireland’s transition to a circular economy and a cleaner, greener future.”

Alan Pearson, Chief Information Officer at Re-turn

Martin Basila, CEO of Sensoneo, is proud to partner with Re-turn and contribute to a positive role model for other countries in the region: “The successful implementation and operation of DRS in Ireland, along with its positive reception by the public and consumers, demonstrate that a deposit system can work effectively and is the best way to achieve a high collection rate for single-use packaging. We are extremely proud that Sensoneo is contributing to a greener and cleaner Ireland as the IT system provider.”

How Container Deposit Systems Perform Across Europe