Re-turn has reported that over three million drinks containers were returned on Sunday 12 May, in the busiest day of returns since the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) began, on 1 February.
This is a million more than were returned in the entire month of February, wherein two million drinks containers were returned overall.
The daily average of containers returned is now at 2.37 million for the month of May.
Sunday’s record high pushed the number of containers returned so far under the scheme over the 100-million mark.
On the weekend of Friday 10 to Sunday 12 May, over 8.1 million containers were returned.
The week of 5-11 May recorded the highest level of participation to date, with the return of 16.7 million containers – not including the three million on 12 May.
There are over 2,300 reverse vending machines (RVMs) in operation across Ireland, helping consumers engage with the scheme.
The number of returns has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the DRS, with monthly returns rising dramatically from 20 million in March to 50 million in April.
Some 30.9 million containers have been returned in May so far.
‘Gradual Improvement’
Speaking about the new milestone, the chief executive of Re-turn, Ciaran Foley, said, “Saturday 11 May marked 100 days of the operation of the Deposit Return Scheme in Ireland.
“We are seeing really good support from Irish consumers, with continued growth in numbers participating and returning drinks containers each week.
“The inaugural months of a deposit return scheme is all about gradual improvement, and that’s exactly what we’re achieving.
“Return numbers are steadily rising each week, with people now returning millions of bottles and cans every day.”
Last week, it was reported that fewer than 1% of the RVMs had been replaced, to ensure the efficient running of the scheme.
Following the update, Re-turn reported that reliability had returned across the network.
Read More: Re-turn Replaces Some Deposit Return Scheme Machines
