Have you got the bottle for our new plastics recycling scheme?

LADS, I might be showing my age here, but is there anything more exciting than the introduction of a watermark deposit recycling scheme?

Am I right? Anyone? Down the back, even? Just me, then?

Let me tell you that I am actively excited about the new deposit return scheme launching this week.

At the moment, around 60% of cans and plastic bottles are collected for recycling in green bins, which means that 30% are not collected and end up in landfill or strewn around our environment.

The thinking is that by placing a value on these containers, consumers will be incentivised to return them for money previously paid on deposit. It’s a circular economy principle, the idea of which is to create a closed-loop recycling system with material returned and then recycled into new drink containers.

I, for one, welcome and fully support our new closed-loop recycling overlords. Some people are already whingeing about the extra work involved in storing cans and bottles and bringing them back to the shop to be reimbursed at a later date. But this is the kind of ecological admin that gets me leaping out of bed in the morning.

I approach recycling with the same intense planning as Alexander the Great might have organised his infantry. Sure, in the past, men in their prime might have stalked the land hunting and gathering for their families and tribes, fighting wolves and bison and wrestling squirrels for nuts on the forest floor. These days, we must satisfy ourselves with more prosaic tasks.

Instead of spears, I go to battle with a Lidl Plus card and about 40 bags in the boot these days. Instead of wrestling wild animals, I have to satisfy myself man-handling Dolmio jars as my wife giggles in the background. Some of my most ruthless hunting is done on the phone, bravely tracking down the best electricity and gas deals with the help of cost comparison sites.

My Waterloo is bin night when I do all in my power to minimise excess weight charges by carefully strategising what goes in the green bin and what can wait in the shed for another week. And let me tell you, I’ve never been so excited as I am about the Re-Turn Ireland deposit plastic bottle and aluminium can scheme.

Wish me luck!

Disaster for democracy!

I WAS saddened but, alas, not surprised when I read the reports during the week that Holly Cairns has been forced to close her Bandon constituency office over security concerns.

How depressing that in a country which has ostensibly travelled so far down the road of equality, this is now a normal thing in our politics.

Even more damningly, Ms Cairns admitted then that she might not have put herself forward for election at all had she known how much abuse she would face while working as a TD.

‘If I knew what I was getting myself into, no, I would not have done it. Am I glad I didn’t know? 100% because I don’t regret it,’ she said last week.

Whatever the shape and colour of your politics, this is a disaster for democracy. Anyone with eyes and a head will have noticed the energy that Cairns has brought to her party and the Dáil, and we need more youth and more diversity in our politics, not the opposite.

This sort of thing will also have the effect of discouraging others to follow suit and we’ll be all the poorer for it. Shame on the idiots who brought this about.

More slips for Mary Lou

THERE was unwelcome news for another female leader in the Dáil at the weekend with further slips in the polls for Sinn Féin which are outside the margin of error.

The Business Post Red C survey has Sinn Féin at 25%, which is a fall of four points from the last major poll in November. There was no bounce for the government parties, however, who remain more or less the same, with an increase in votes for independents which some are putting down to immigration concerns, but this is quite a presumption in my opinion.

The likelihood of a Sinn Féinled left-wing alliance leading the next government is looking less likely by the day.

Pressure must surely be mounting on Micheál Martin to reconsider his existing blanket ban on the idea of forming a coalition with them.

In better news for the Shinners, it looks like they’ll at least be getting back to work in Stormont after the DUP finally got out of its own way to restore power-sharing in Stormont.

This was achieved on the back of a deal with the Tories regarding the sea border arrangements.

A deal between the DUP and The Tories? Sure what could possibly go wrong, says you?