Recycling breaks the (bottle) bank

Donal Hickey on the huge amount of glass being returned

LONG before bottle banks were invented, Irish people were recycling glass. Many of us will remember collecting jam jars for which we received one old penny, a princely sum for a youngster, while milk bottles have always been returned.

Maybe it’s because Irish people have been reusing glass since God knows when, but it’s an area in which great success has been achieved. The amount of glass being returned for reuse is just mind-boggling.