Submissions invited on the design of Irelands Deposit Return Scheme (DRS)

More information:

Deposit Return Scheme Consultation On Potential Models For Ireland/

The Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) is looking for your views on how this DRS should operate in Ireland. The consultation document outlines possible options and poses some questions in this regard. However, you do not have to respond to all questions and you are free to raise other relevant points.

Submissions can be made to

The closing date for submissions is 5pm Thursday 12 November 2020

The Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan T.D., today (2 October 2020) has invited the public to give their views on the design of a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and aluminium cans.

The Programme for Government – Our Shared Future – and the Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy set out the Government’s commitment to introduce a Deposit and Return Scheme (DRS) for plastic bottles (up to 3 litres in volume) and aluminium cans.

The public consultation paper published today suggests a deposit of €0.20 per container, with submissions invited from the public and stakeholders on the design of the Scheme. The primary function of a DRS is to increase recycling rates and support the circular economy by keeping materials in productive use and reducing demand for new materials. They have also been shown to assist in the reduction of littering of beverage containers.

Deposit and return schemes have been around for decades and were originally designed by the beverage industry as a way of ensuring the return of bottles so they could be washed, refilled and resold. In Ireland, some people will remember this as a system that was previously used to ensure that glass milk and soft-drink bottles were returned for reuse. In a DRS a refundable deposit is applied to beverage containers to incentivise consumers to return their beverage containers for recycling or reuse.

Speaking at the publication, Minister Ryan said:

‘If we are to get the benefits of a circular economy we need to adapt our approach to how we use and manage our resources. We must strive to keep resources in circulation for as long as possible and the introduction of a DRS is a first step in this, as we need to collect and recycle more plastic bottles and aluminium cans. It will also help to reduce litter and will ensure that we meet the EU targets which are coming down the tracks. This consultation paper is the first step in this process and I hope that interested stakeholders and members of the public take the time to consider the issues around DRS and support its introduction’.

The Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy, published by Minister Ryan on 4 September outlined the steps that would be taken to lead to the introduction of the scheme. These steps are:

1. A public consultation on design options- being launched today for a period of six weeks.

2. Public consultation on preferred model and draft regulations (Q1 2021);

3. Commencement of underpinning legislation (Q3 2021);

4. Introduction of scheme (Q3 2022).

Alongside this consultation paper, which sets out how potential DRS models could operate in Ireland, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is also publishing a report it commissioned from Eunomia Research and Consulting to analyse options for Ireland to increase its capture of plastic bottles and aluminium beverage containers.

To facilitate a structured response, the paper poses some questions for consideration. Respondents are not required to respond to all questions and are free to raise other relevant points. All submissions are welcome and will be considered in developing the new Deposit and Refund Scheme.

The closing date for submissions is 5pm, Thursday 12 November, 2020.

UCC scientist contributes to major global report released today on the world’s plants and fungi, along with collaborators from 42 countries.

Report names thousands of plant and fungal species as new to science in 2019, including some that might be valuable as foods, drinks or medicines.

A University College Cork plant scientist has contributed to a new report that takes a deep dive into the state of the world’s plant and fungal kingdoms globally.
The new data, the result of a huge and unprecedented international collaboration bringing together 210 scientists from 42 countries, show how we are currently using plants and fungi, what useful properties we are missing, and what we risk losing.
UCC plant scientist Dr Eoin Lettice is one of the co-authors of the report, published today (September 30th, 2020), by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Dr Lettice said the publication comes at a critical time for global biodiversity:
“We live in a time of unprecedented biodiversity loss. Our report sheds light on the extinction risk of plants and fungi globally, with 2 in 5 plants now at risk of being wiped out. Given the importance of plants to society – they give us medicines, food, beverages, clothes, energy, and more – it’s never been more important that we identify, record and protect species wherever we find them and that we do that quickly, before it’s too late”.
Plants and fungi are the building blocks of life on planet Earth. They have the potential to solve urgent problems that threaten human life, but these vital resources are being compromised by biodiversity loss. The report highlights the pressing need to explore the solutions that plants and fungi could provide, to address some of the pressures facing people and the planet. These pressures include the triple threats of climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security.
The challenges in sustainably using plants and fungi to supply food to an ever-increasing human population is highlighted in the report.
“Just 15 plants provide 90% of humanity’s food energy intake. Our report shows that there are at least 7,039 edible plant species known to science. These novel crops could hold the key to feeding a growing global population,” said Dr Lettice.
The report also highlights the importance of Crop Wild Relatives (CWR). These are plants that are related to cultivated crops and could be used to introduce important traits like disease resistance into commonly grown crops. Such efforts would employ a mixture of traditional plant breeding and novel biotechnological approaches like genetic modification and gene-editing.
“Commercial crops like potato, wheat, rice and so on have been bred to produce high yields and in that regard they have been successful”, said Dr Lettice.
“Unfortunately, they have not always been bred to possess traits like resistance to new pests and diseases or the capacity to thrive under changing climatic conditions. We need to look back at the ‘family tree’ of these crops to see if there are wild relatives with useful characteristics that can now make our modern crops more adaptable”.
On a positive note, the team at Kew announce today that 1,942 plant species and 1,886 fungal species were named as new to science in 2019. Among these exciting discoveries are species that might be valuable as foods, drinks or medicines. Highlights include:
Six new species of Allium, the plant group to which garlic, onions, leeks and chives belong have been discovered.

The underlying data behind today’s report is also published in a series of 12 scientific research papers made freely available in the leading journal Plants, People, Planet.

Kew State of the Worlds Plants and Fungi

https://www.kew.org/…/state-of-the-worlds-plants-and-fungi