Retailers have warned that an incoming Re-Turnstyle deposit scheme in the North, which will pay higher rates per bottle, will see an ‘exodus’ of shoppers taking their recyclables across the border.

The Convenience Stores & Newsagents Association (CSNA) told the Oireachtas Climate Committee yesterday that a scheme launching in the North next autumn will harm shop owners and reduce the amount of bottles and cans being recycled in the Republic.

CSNA president Sara Orme also hit out at the return scheme’s operators, Re-turn, over the 2.2c handling fee retailers receive per can, which she claimed was not enough for smaller shops to break even when machine maintenance was factored in.

She said: ‘We have very real concerns that there will be an exodus of containers from the South to the North once their scheme gets up and running.’

The UK’s scheme will see a deposit of 20p (23c) received for every container returned, almost 10c more than the 15c available to consumers for small items through Re-turn.

‘If you have groups or people collecting cans and they suddenly realise they’re worth 15 cent in the South, but they’re worth more in the North, of course you’re going to go across the border,’ Ms Orme said.

‘That’s going to affect Re-Turn’s target for a 90% recycling rate by 2029 and our members along the border areas who have these machines and operating costs, and now potentially have less cans going through them.’

Re-Turn’s chief regulatory officer, Gill McCann, stated that Ms Orme was right to have concerns but that country-specific barcodes that could only be redeemed in one jurisdiction could ‘mitigate the amount of movement across the border’.

The not-for-profit company’s chief executive, Ciarán Foley, stated that his team had been in contact with the UK’s Exchange for Change scheme to work together on the issue.

‘We’ll make sure it’s as seamless as we possibly can… By working very closely with the UK, we’re hoping we’ll make it as easy as we can for customers,’ he said.

More than €120million was left unredeemed in the first two years of the Deposit Return Scheme, Mr Foley confirmed yesterday, as customers failed to bring back empty bottles and cans to claim their deposits.

Pressed by Fine Gael TD John Clendennen on the scale of the shortfall, Mr Foley said it came to €66.7million in 2024 and €60million in 2025. Mr Foley said that much of this had been spent on VAT and paying back loans to start the scheme.

‘It’s not a case that we are sitting on all that,’ he said.

When asked if unredeemed cans making up a large portion of Re-Turn’s revenue was a conflict of interest, Mr Foley said that the company wants ‘everyone to bring the bottles back’.

Re-Turn representatives were also quizzed on the scheme’s finances by committee members, with Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore inquiring how many of the 3,800 reverse vending machines installed across the country were accessible for people with disabilities to use.

Ms McCann stated that disability studies had taken place and that ‘many retailers will have chosen machines with the lower slots’.

Ms Whitmore stated that return machines are legally required to be usable by everyone regardless of disability, yet ‘two years into operation, with quite a large number of staff and a very large operating budget available, you still can’t say how many collection points are accessible’.

Re-Turn employs 59 staff, with Mr Foley telling the hearing that a figure of €1.1million in pay for the top five executives reported last year was the same in 2026, but included pension contributions.

Independent TD Barry Heneghan queried whether a pay freeze for senior management would be considered, saying: ‘You’re telling over 1,000 CSNA members that you can’t raise the 2.2c handling fee. How can you justify that order of priorities to a shopkeeper?’

Re-Turn chair Tony Keohane stated that the salaries were to ‘make sure we attract the right people’ to run the scheme, and that an appeals mechanism exists for retailers who feel they are losing money, in which Re-Turn will look at the business’s financial data and consider additional supports.

The committee also heard that Re-Turn’s marketing budget in its first year, 2024, was €4.6million, rising to €6.8million last year.

When asked why a marketing budget higher than the cost of the company’s entire payroll increased after the scheme was in operation and well-known, Mr Foley said: ‘Norway has a scheme that’s been running for over 20 years, they still spend more than we do on the marketing. ‘It’s really important to keep people motivated.’

He added that only 49% of cans and bottles were recycled before the scheme, and that figure was now at 78%.