Irish News Concerns raised over potential cross-border fraud in bottle recycling scheme An ambitious plan to pay consumers to recycle two billion plastic bottles and aluminium cans a year could attract fraudsters from Northern Ireland, officials have warned. The Government is now urging its counterparts in Britain @DefraGovUK to introduce the same scheme in Northern Ireland @daera_ni to prevent any cross-border exploitation. The new deposit return scheme is due to come into effect from February 1 next year. Customers will pay extra for drinks in bottles made of PET plastic or aluminium cans with the money refundable when they bring the empty container to a return site. The extra payment or deposit will cost 15c for drinks from 150ml to 500ml and 25c for drinks of 500ml to three litres. Minister Ossian Smyth @smytho who is in charge of the scheme is concerned that could prove lucrative enough to attract cross-border returns. “I would much prefer if we could have an all-Ireland deposit return scheme. I’m concerned about the fact that I have to be very careful about fraud,” he said. “I don’t want a whole lot of bottles coming over the border that didn’t pay a deposit being put into machines on this side of the border.” Northern Ireland has had no government since May 2022 after talks on forming a new assembly failed, however, so there is no minister he can work with on a joint initiative. “What I have been doing is contacting my equivalent in Westminster as a second best but really it would be great to have a political executive in Northern Ireland that we could work with on environmental matters,” he said. The deposit return scheme is already working in pilot locations and 2,500 shops have signed up to take part when it formally begins next year Mr Smyth told the Environment Ireland annual conference that he expected 90pc of bottles and cans would be returned for recycling when the scheme was fully operational. "In the same way that people got used to bringing their bags when they go shopping, they will now take one of those bags and fill it with whatever bottles or cans they have,” he said. Bottles and cans can be put in household green bins but millions are thrown into general waste bins every year and incinerated. Ireland had to pay the EU €200 million last year under a new levy which charges countries 80c for every kilogram of plastics they fail to recycle. The deposit return scheme is one of a number of waste reduction measures planned. Mr Smyth said the long-awaited levy on disposable coffee cups would come into effect “in the next few months”. The scheme aims to reduce the 200 million coffee cups dumped in Ireland each year. The Minister said he would also target the huge volumes of waste generated by the construction industry. He said much of the materials amassed after buildings were demolished and foundations excavated could be used for other construction projects but instead they were landfilled while companies bought fresh material. “We have quarries all over the country. We have a lot of mining of aggregates and a lot of truck movements as a result and a lot of it is unnecessary.” #Drs #DepositReturn #Ireland @theresecoffey @pow_rebecca @elajones15 @BritSoftDrinks @MaryCreagh_ @ZacGoldsmith @DefraGovUK @TheFed_Online @CMConsultinginc @lucysiegle @JuliaBradbury @Dunne4Ludlow @CommonsEAC @NAOorguk @BlantFamily @AluproUK @CocaColaEP @CocaCola_GB @DepReturn_IE @Env_Ireland @JimFox_Coke @PaldeepB @IainGulland @UNESDA @CIWMNI @CIWMCymru @WRAP_Cymru @NIOgov Via @Independent_ie independent.ie/irish-news/co…