Longford shoppers redeem more than €68,000 in deposits at ALDI

June was the most successful month to date for the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) at ALDI, as shoppers across Ireland collectively returned 16.7 million items.

In Longford, shoppers returned almost 170,000 items in June, bringing the total number of items returned locally to more than 390,000 since the launch of the scheme. This equates to a total of €68,000 in vouchers being issued in Longford to date.

ALDI’s Longford town store is well above the national average across all of ALDI’s 161 stores in Ireland, which have handled an average of 264,000 items each since the launch of the scheme, worth almost €45,000 in returned deposits.

ALDI DRS units have seen a steady increase in the numbers of items returned since February, as customers become acquainted with the scheme. Under the scheme empty bottles and cans containers marked with the Re-turn logo can be returned to the reverse vending machine at all participating retailers, regardless of where the item was originally purchased. Customers receive a voucher for their returned items, which can be put against their shopping bill or returned in cash.

ALDI has also seen a growing trend where customers are adding the value of their DRS vouchers to their ALDI Christmas Savings Card when doing their weekly shop, allowing them to start saving in advance of the festive season.

The scheme aims to reduce the amount of litter across Irish towns, villages and countryside, by incentivising consumers to recycle their empty items.

Prior to the introduction of the DRS, Ireland had one of the lowest rates of recycling of PET and aluminium drinks bottles and cans, with approximately only 60% of all drinks containers being recycled.

Similar schemes across Europe have been successful in increasing this number in line with the EU target of 77% of all drinks containers to be recycled by 2025.