Bevcraft founders ‘frustrated’ with recycling scheme

The founders of Bevcraft have been left ‘frustrated’ with the new Deposit Return Scheme, which they say has caused “big challenges” for small breweries in Ireland.

Bevcraft, located at Mullingar Business Park, is a market leader in Europe’s ‘craft can’ sector, which specialises in can decoration, filling and distribution.

They say the scheme has ‘disproportionately’ affected smaller breweries, who have to change their product design and add the Re-Turn logo, at a cost of thousands of euro, to their products.

Bevcraft chief financial officer (CFO) Ciaran Gorman said there’s less burden on large manufacturers, who can spread design change costs over potentially millions of products. “In Ireland, we are importing lots of drinks from the UK and Northern Ireland, who have to comply with these rules in what is a small market for them,” he told the Westmeath Examiner.

“We’re actually finding that some of our customers in Northern Ireland, wonderful small craft breweries producing great products, have decided not to sell here any more because it’s not worth their while.

“The immediate impact of the scheme has been a sharp drop in output in this sector and people are frustrated.”

The Bevcraft CFO has also been left confused as to why glass bottles were left out of the scheme.

“We can’t understand why this only applies to aluminium cans and plastic bottles which have a high recycling rate already,” he said.

“Glass bottles weigh ten times more and produce an enormous amount of CO2 in manufacture.

“The fact this excludes glass bottles is something we can’t really understand, if the environment is the actual goal here, then it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“A can weighs about 10g when a glass bottle weighs about 150g, so if you’re driving trucks around the country, you are wasting a lot of fuel driving glass bottles around.”

Mr Gorman is “extremely supportive” of environmental measures but said this scheme leaves much to be desired.

“It’s going to increase the cost to consumers for sure,” he said.

“Although the deposit is refundable, the administrative and compliance costs associated with the scheme will drive up prices for the consumer.

“We are completely supportive of measures to improve recycling rates and sustainability but there are question marks as to whether this can achieve that.”

Mr Gorman said the scheme could lead to increased wastage, opposite to its intentions.

“We have customers who would have one to two years of cans already manufactured,” he said. “They have a massive burden to either try to use up material or else they might have to scrap it, which is very wasteful. We talk about wanting to bolster local enterprise and give people a chance to have a go, but if breweries are writing off tens of thousands of euro of packing material because of a scheme like this, that can put them in a serious position.”

Bevcraft chief operating officer (COO) Darren Fenton said the mandated logo on all containers is an unnecessary burden.

“The scheme is centred around the barcode and the registration of that barcode number is what ties it to the deposit,” he said.

“However, Re-Turn, the company who run the scheme, have made the logo a mandatory requirement after a small grace period of three or four months.

“After that point, that logo will be mandatory and that is quite problematic because a lot of craft breweries and smaller producers of beverages would have bought labels for their cans in bulk to make savings.

“They are scrambling now to get the Re-Turn logo applied to the cans and, ironically, there is a huge material waste associated with that and people are frustrated.”

Mr Fenton called for the logo to be optional.

“Our customer base would really be pushing for that Re-Turn logo to be made optional and that’s something we definitely would be supportive of,” he said.

Bevcraft made the Financial Times list of Europe’s 1000 fastest-growing companies again this month, a list they have made for three years running now, becoming the first Irish company to manage that feat.

Department of Environment response

In response to calls for the Re-Turn logo to be optional, a Department of Environment and Climate spokesperson told the Westmeath Examiner that it is necessary to avoid fraud.

“Clear labelling, through the display of a logo on each container, maximises understanding and minimises fraud,” they said.

“It makes it easier for consumers and retailers to identify products which are covered by the DRS and it reduces the risk of deposit fraud.

“The risk of deposit fraud is much higher where the jurisdiction in which the beverage was purchased does not have a DRS, as is the case here with Northern Ireland.”

The spokesperson said they published logo guidelines in February of 2023, giving companies a year to add it to their products.

They also said they have provided stickers for small companies to add to existing packaging left over from before the new regulations were announced.

Latest figures from Re-turn

Re-turn have collected 5.6 million drinks containers since launch on February 1; in the first 10 days of March there were returns of more than 3.6 million drinks containers alone.

In a statement, Re-turn said: “This collection figure shows the growing momentum of the scheme and the strong support for sustainable recycling efforts. With over 1.9 million transactions now recorded and 2300 Reverse Vending Machines, the scheme is advancing towards Ireland’s recycling targets.”