OPINION: There should be a Deposit Return Scheme for election junk mail - I'd be rich!

Another day, another letter in the post I didn't ask for from a hopeful politician. I've spent the last three weeks picking up these leaflets from candidates from all parties and none, leaving them on the hall table for a few days, before eventually binning them. I wondered the other day if it wasn't all a bit hypocritical from candidates, especially when I received two pieces of literature from the same Green Party candidate. 

I've been a big critic of the Deposit Return Scheme since its introduction back in February of this year because I think it punishes already hard-pressed people by adding 15c or 25c to the cost of cans and bottles. I know, I know - you get the money back when you traipse back to the shop and pop them into a machine that may or may not be working one by one. It's nonsense but the message behind it from Government is quite simple; it's aimed at reducing illegal dumping and increasing recycling. 

They say it's for the environment and while I question why I have to be taxed on products I was already recycling before, I accept that premise and believe that Minister Eamon Ryan is honest in his justification of the scheme. He says you get an excellent clean collection of recyclable cans and bottles in the machines and I believe him. We're all paying for it to be so because the Government is more willing to levy the Irish people than big business to tackle these issues. 

We've long listened to arguments about plastics and paper being needlessly printed and it's encouraged for workplaces and schools and other institutions to go paperless in the interest of the environment. And yet, here I am opening my postbox to five new pieces of political junk mail from the very people telling me to reduce it.

It's a bit rich, especially from the Green Party, to see literature coming through the door and posters stuck on every lamp post while we drive by on our way to get our 15 and 25c back at the supermarket. That's not to mention them telling us to get an electric car or cycle to work while Eamon Ryan jets off to Brazil or Hong Kong for St Patrick's Day. 

People, more than anything else, are fed up with the hypocrisy of it all. Do as I say, not as I do. While I have opted out of the Deposit Return Scheme so far, I'd happily drive my collection of 'Vote For Me' junk mail to a nearby machine and get paid to get rid - I mean recycle it. 

Wouldn't it be a better idea for every household to receive one election information booklet unique to their area with information on voting places, candidates and so on, rather than eight weeks of a constant stream of useless pieces of paper from every candidate that invariably end up in the bin anyway - unread most of the time?