Ireland Deposit Return Scheme (“DRS”)

On 1 February 2024, Ireland will implement a Deposit Return Scheme (“DRS”), meaning that when someone buys a drink in an in-scope container (plastic bottle, aluminium or steel can) featuring the Re-turn logo, they will pay a small deposit in addition to the price of the drink. When they return the empty and undamaged in-scope container to any retail outlet registered as a Deposit Return Point, their deposit will be returned in full.  A deposit of 15c will apply to containers from 150ml to 500ml inclusive, and a deposit of 25c for containers over 500ml to 3 litres inclusive.

As a retailer operating under the scheme, it is your responsibility to ensure that you are compliant with the DRS requirements.There may be consequences for merchants for non compliance.

Re-turn has confirmed a Transition Period to facilitate both producers and retailers in selling non-deposit stock and preventing waste. 

Adding DRS Deposits using “Bottle deposit” field

For all ‘in-scope’ drinks containers featuring the Re-turn logo in your menu, you will need to  add a deposit using the “Bottle deposit” field in the menu item. You can easily do this using the Menu Maker in the Uber Eats Manager portal by following this step by step guide.

Important Note 1: Updating the “Bottle Deposit” amount will not impact price when ordering. To add the deposit on top of the current item price, simply increase the item price by the deposit amount

Important Note 2: If your restaurant has an active POS order or menu integration with Uber Eats, your integrator needs to provide the amount of the deposit through ‘container_deposit’ field here via the API; updating the “container_deposit”  amount will not impact price when ordering. If you face difficulties applying the changes to your menu, we recommend you to reach out to your POS integration partner.

Important Note 3: If your restaurant is part of a larger restaurant group that manages the menu for you, we recommend that you reach out to your restaurant group headquarters for more information.

Guidance on Deposit amounts in the menu 

Only ‘in-scope’ drinks containers in PET plastic bottles, aluminium & steel cans from 150ml to 3 litres are included in the Scheme. All drinks containers included in the Deposit Return Scheme will feature the Re-turn logo. For consistency and transparency around pricing towards customers, we ask you to follow the Re-turn guidance:

Bundled Items:

For items consisting of “combos” or “bundles” where in-scope drinks might be added via item customisations you will need to:

Unfortunately, our product currently does not support setting a different VAT rate between the main item and its bottle deposit. This means that the VAT rate assigned to a menu item will be automatically applied to the Deposit as well. As a result, the VAT on the Deposits for the Deposit Return Scheme in your Payment Details Report may be incorrect. If you use these invoices for tax purposes, we recommend that you discuss how to proceed with an accountant or advisor

Our technical team is aware of the product limitation, and is working to make it possible to set different VAT rates for bottle deposits.

We are pleased to confirm that the deposits on DRS in-scope items will be commission-free, empowering our partners to reduce their environmental footprint. While our app is not currently ready to support exempting the bottle deposits from commissions, we will reimburse commissions paid for the deposits on a quarterly basis, until our app is able to support this automatically. The first reimbursement payment will be for the period 1 February – 31 March, and will be scheduled for April, 2024.

To learn more about our sustainability commitments, visit our website.

We’ve created this step by step guide to help you make the necessary changes in your menu.If you have any questions or need additional support please contact ukirestaurants@uber.com