Colm O'Regan: Why reusing makes more sense than recycling

Colm O'Regan: "Since the scheme began, we’ve been hauling back our empties — sometimes shamefacedly on Sunday mornings — 15 cans of Galahad in hand." Picture: Andres Poveda.

I noticed it across the road. It’s simultaneously the most hopeful yet slightly depressing billboard you could see.

Re-turn, the operator of Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme, is celebrating a major milestone: one billion drinks containers returned by the Irish public. That’s enough bottles and cans to circle the globe 4.7 times.

Picture it — our precious planet floating in space, encircled by four Saturn-like rings of bottles and cans.

Since the scheme began, we’ve been hauling back our empties — sometimes shamefacedly on Sunday mornings — 15 cans of Galahad in hand.

“Hope nobody sees us,” we think, as we shove our contribution to the billion into the glowing bottle and can portal in Spars, Londises, Aldis, Lidls, and other receptacles across the country.

It hasn’t been easy to change our habits. Under the full glare of the media — or at least the parish spotlight — we’re suddenly confronted with the evidence of our consumption. Once, we could do this quietly, slipping bottles into the bank in the dead of night at the corner of a car park.

And if you bumped into someone else there? Well, you could both pretend you’d just hosted a massive dinner party.

But now, it’s all very out in the open. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it amazing?

After all the moaning. In our best Dr Evil voice: “One BEEEELLION bottles!”

1 billionth drinks container being returned at Lidl Kilcarbery. Pictured are (LtoR) Colin Walsh, Senior Project Manager at Lidl Ireland, Niamh Kelly, Head of Marketing and Communications at Re-turn, Ela Standa, Team Member at Lidl Kilcarbery, and Andrei Romanschi, Store Manager at Lidl Kilcarbery. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland.

Yet it begs the question — what the hell are five million people doing using a billion bottles and cans a year?

All that metal, all that plastic. Used once and thrown away. Sure, cans can be recycled forever, but that still takes energy — burning a bit of diesel.

And plastic? Yes, it can be recycled, and the quality is good, but really, shouldn’t it be used more than once?

Anyone over a certain age remembers the bottle. The one that lived in the house. The one used for milk for the flask. Used hundreds of times.

I don’t even want to think about what kind of anthrax or smallpox might have lurked in the lid — but hey, I’m still here to tell the tale.

So yes, it’s great to recycle.

But really, we could do with a bit more reuse — or even not using in the first place.

Now, of course, I’m not saying you can’t have four cans of Sainte Etienne on the odd Monday. It’s other people who are the problem.

But we do need to start thinking about the energy that goes into making all these things we use once.

Colm O'Regan: "Re-turn, the operator of Ireland’s Deposit Return Scheme, is celebrating a major milestone: one billion drinks containers returned by the Irish public. That’s enough bottles and cans to circle the globe 4.7 times.

And that energy — whether we like it or not — is oil.

Yes, it’s brilliant that we’ve stopped tossing our rubbish into areas of outstanding natural beauty and are now tossing it into the glowing portal at the Emo station.

But wouldn’t a bit of reuse be OK too? Because, as time goes on, oil is getting harder to find. And metal.

In fact, all the things that make our lives miraculous have been, until now, relatively easy to get.

(Apologies to those who dig this stuff out of the ground for a living. It’s definitely a harder job than waffling on in a column.)

Everyone’s shouting at the Just Stop Oil protesters. I don’t.

History will judge them well, I think. They care.

But at the very least — even if you don’t agree with them — we should be shouting something else: Just Stop Wasting Oil.

Because all this plastic, all this metal — it all comes from somewhere. And one day, it’s going to get a lot dearer.

And when that day comes, we won’t be returning that plastic bottle.

We’ll be keeping it. For the flask.