A self-proclaimed "bog-standard" TD has appealed to the Government to reintroduce money-back levies on bottles and cans to solve the litter problem they created "overnight".
Mr Paul Gogarty (GP, Dublin Mid-West) said every town had its drinkers and if they had to pay an extra 20 or 50 cents on their cans, "I guarantee that they would not be leaving them down at the bottom of a field or in the local park."
He appealed to the Government to follow the example of Denmark, where deposits of 10 per cent to 48 per cent were charged for cans and bottles; and Sweden, where "you shove a bottle or can into a machine" in a supermarket "and it prints out a receipt which gives a certain amount off groceries".
Recycling would "double or treble" at little or no cost to the Exchequer . There was an "opportunity to make the recycling of bottles viable again in this country".
Mr Gogarty, the Green Party's tourism spokesman, was also speaking as a "bog-standard" TD from a constituency which had rural areas, such as Newcastle, Saggart, Rathcoole and Brittas, with a dumping problem.
It would "make sense to do anything in our power that would not cost the Exchequer anything to ensure that we become a little cleaner".
Mr Gogarty recalled the money-back bottles that he used to collect at "every chance I got" to make a few pounds and it was a good way of "recycling".
The Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Noel Ahern, who recalled the "bonanza" of money-back bottles, was "not entirely sure that young kids would be as dedicated to chasing a few bob as we might have been a few decades ago".
He was "actively considering" extending the "overwhelming success" of the plastic bag levy to other non-reusable packaging. There was more than a 90 per cent reduction in their use, and a "subsequent corresponding impact on the visible environment".
