Analysis: It's probably the biggest environmental behaviour change since the plastic bag levy, but are we any good at dealing with change?
Is it a TARDIS? No, it's a reverse vending machine. Mysterious blue boxes have been appearing in shops all across the country in recent weeks as we near D-Day for Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). The scheme goes live on February 1st, marking the beginning of a new recycling journey for the country.
From that date, the price of plastic bottle or can will increase by 15c (150ml to 500ml) or 25c (500ml to 3l). Consumers will receive this fully refundable deposit back, in cash or a redeemable voucher, when they return the undamaged bottles or cans with the Re-Turn logo to a designated return point. Return points, either manual (handing them back over the counter) or reverse vending machines, will be located in the majority of shops where bottles and cans are purchased. You don’t have to hand them back into the shop you bought them from, but you do have to redeem your voucher in the shop you return them to.
From RTÉ News, everything you need to know about the Deposit Return Scheme.
Right now, Ireland recycles about 60% of drinks containers, but we need to reach 77% by 2025 and 90% in 2029 to meet our targets under the EU single plastics directive. We also need to reach 25% recycled plastic content in PET beverage bottles by December 2025 and 30% by December 2030. Under the directive, all plastic packaging on the EU market must be recyclable by 2030. A DRS is widely considered the best way to reach a high level of recycling, as part of a circular economy where bottles get turned back into bottles and cans back into cans. Forty regions in the world have similar schemes, including 14 countries in Europe, including Denmark and Germany. Ireland will be the 15th.
The scheme is probably the biggest environmental behaviour change we've seen since the plastic bag levy was introduced. We'll have to pay more upfront for the bottles and cans, keep them separate at home, remember not to crush them or damage them, and then bring them all back to get the deposit. But are we any good at changing our habits and dealing with change? "Generally speaking, yes, we're very good at adapting our behaviour," says Dr Deirdre Robertson, Senior Research Officer with the Economic & Social Research Institute's Behavioural Science Unit and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology at TCD. "We actually tend to anticipate that we won't like change more than we actually do when it happens."
A survey done by Amarach for Re-Turn, the not-for-profit tasked with running the scheme, found 82% of consumers support the introduction of the deposit return scheme and 95% planned to engage with it. 82% stated that the deposit placed on drink containers will incentivise them to return empty drinks containers.
From DW, Why 99 percent of bottles in Germany get returned
94% of those surveyed considered the impact their recycling behaviour will have on future generations at some level, while three-quarters of consumers (76%) believe as individuals they can make a difference to the environment by recycling drinks containers, and they mainly believe they can do this by recycling and reusing more. Almost two-thirds of the population (65%) are concerned that too many drinks containers are used in Ireland, and nearly 3 in 4 adults and 73% of those surveyed believe that placing a monetary value on drinks containers will incentivise consumers to move away from a throwaway culture to one that returns valuable materials.
Some were opposed to the plastic bag levy, but now we couldn't really imagine having a single use use plastic bag in a supermarket (except in the vegetable aisle), says Robertson. Part of why the levy worked, "is that it wasn't really a very big financial hit to pay a few cents for a plastic bag. So there's also social signals and there's that sense of losing out on something, even though the financial loss wasn't very big, that meant that people changed their behaviour basically overnight."
Read more: Why this is probably the best bottle deposit scheme in the world
Part of what makes a DRS work is the incentive to get your deposit back, which then brings up recycling rates. Robertson says we know from behavioural research that a surcharge (like the levy on bottles and cans) works better than a discount. "If people are thinking of this as, 'I am paying extra because I'm buying this plastic bottle' then that's likely to change their behaviour - depending on how salient that is to people at the time of purchase." If the prices just went up, people might just get used to the higher prices and move on. "But with advertising around it and so on, then that type of a surcharge does tend to change behaviour."
It's hard to say what role the environmental benefit plays as an incentive to people, versus the financial incentive. "There’s lots of research that looks at, does framing in terms of environmental cost or financial cost make a difference people's behaviour?", explains Robertson. "And generally it tends to depend on the person and can vary whether one or the other is more effective. So it probably depends on different people's motivations. Generally speaking, when it comes to recycling then that's a behaviour that's quite well accepted."
From Dansk Retursystem, how the deposit return system works in Denmark
A previous ESRI report on environmentally friendly behaviours found that people felt not recycling was one of the most unacceptable things to do. People also had good intentions for the future when it came to wanting to recycle, but tended to overestimate how big an effect it would have on the environment.
So how do you make it easy for people to change their behaviour? "Generally speaking, when you're trying to change your behaviour, something that's as easy as possible and as obvious as possible makes it much easier to do," says Robertson. "So if it's really easy to use the deposit return scheme and if it's really salient - in that the places where you return them are in an obvious location, and if you see other people using them - all those kind of things makes it more likely that you will use [the machines] than if they're hidden at the back of an industrial estate," she says.
When asked for their main reason for why the introduction of the Deposit Return Scheme is a good idea, almost half of consumers (48%) believe it will encourage or incentivise recycling while a third (33%) believe it will reduce waste or litter. 38% of the population believe that the introduction of a deposit on drinks containers will impact their purchasing of plastic bottles and aluminium cans going forward.
From FT, Are deposit return schemes really the best way to cut litter and emissions?
The Amarach survey also touched on how consumers plan to engage with the scheme. When asked how they plan to return the empty undamaged drinks containers, 41% stated they plan to return drinks containers to retailers via bulk return at intervals (41%). 39% stated they plan to return them whenever they do their shopping. 11% will return drinks containers at random, while 70% stated they would prefer to return drinks containers to retailers via a Reverse Vending Machine. When asked how consumers will typically use their redeemed deposits, 49% stated they will use it against store purchases while 40% said their preference will be for a full cash refund.
"With these types of big policy changes, there is always an industry response as well as an individual behaviour response", says Robertson. "We know from loads of food labelling research, for example, that when a new food label is going to come in or when there's a tax going to be imposed on something, like the sugar tax, that not only do individuals change their behaviour, but also there are, you know, more sugar free products finally available, or there are multiple use plastic bags available instead of single use plastic bags. So it's also possible that there will be a wider behavioural change where plastic bottles just aren't sold as much, if people are put off by the increase in price."
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
