Colm O'Regan: Can-do attitude on Re-turn, until the litter end

Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Picture Denis Minihane.

Do we dare say it? Are there fewer cans and bottles on the ground around the place? It’s all anecdotal. But I might have a marginally above average number of anecdotes seeing as how I’m obsessed with litter.

So I’m on the lookout for rubbish with Squiggly Rs written on them. They’re money. It’s hard to walk past them. I bagged a €2 coin from a casual trip to the park yesterday but it’s getting rarer.

In our local litter-picking group, we do clean-ups along the canal near us and yes, there’s less stuff.

Even the cheap and dirty cider cans. The cans with strong colours and no attempt at hiding their intentions. Cans and large plastic bottles with names like Old Bastard and Very Cider. There are fewer of them. 

Occasionally we’ll find a motherlode under a bridge. A stash. But it’s from the pre-Squiggly R days. 

There’s a backlog of rubbish in our waters from years ago anyway. There’ll always be the Tayto bags with reasonable prices on them, Opal Fruits wrappers and the St Bernard bag.

They’ll go to landfill, but for the other stuff there is the glowing, flickering portal in most shops. 

But it’s not like the portal in North Earl St where you might see someone flashing their bits. Maybe it’s more like a high-success low-stakes slot machine. 

There is always that slight bit of tension where you don’t know if it’ll take your offering. It’s the same feeling I get approaching the automated toll-booth.

I’ve got over the embarrassment of bringing cans to the shop. When you bring bottles to the bottle bank you can pretend it was a fascinating dinner party. 

Whereas bringing cans at lunchtime to the Londis, it looks like you drank them that morning in your pyjamas while watching Bluey. But as they say in the Sopranos, “lotta money in this shit”

Okay, not a lot of money. A couple of euro. I take the few coins and give it to the two children as pocket money. 

They already get a great kick out of spending other people’s money — mine — so the fact that it’s a stranger makes it even better.

And they will hopefully wonder why anyone would throw it away. Our local machine has mostly been working. 

My offerings have nearly all been accepted, so I am mostly positive about the whole scheme. 

It’s at the early stage, but I wonder if they could have done a bit more to foresee the bigger complaints. 

Just assume they’ll not be working properly for the first month. What if they’re broken and someone with mobility needs has a pile of bottles? 

Someone who stores spare stuff on their balcony because that’s the only room they have. 

Let’s just assume there’ll be breakdowns. Just get a big bin and put the bottles in that and give someone a fiver. Just to get us up and running. And think of the little guy.

The smaller breweries and craft resellers for whom packaging changing is a massive pain in the hoop. Were they consulted enough? It’s often called teething difficulties. 

But when a child is teething we move Heaven and Earth just to get them through it. Calpol up to the gills, rub their gums with white powder as if the toddler is testing whether the drugs are good enough. So it should be with bringing new systems in.

It’s not about diluting best practice, it’s about throwing a few bob at keeping people happy during the messy bit. Not for this project but for the next one that requires some habit change.

But lookit, we’re there now. And if nothing else I hope this scheme for all its teething difficulties gets us to understand one thing. 

Packaging is precious. It’s oil, it’s metal. It’s money.