SCOTLAND’S Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) has been delayed to March 2024.
The scheme was due to go live in August this year, but first minister Humza Yousaf said the Scottish Government recognised the ‘uncertainty’ created by the UK Government delaying the decision to exclude the scheme from the Internal Market Act, and also acknowledged that he had heard the concerns of business, particularly about the scheme’s readiness for launch this August.
Mr Yousaf said he remains committed to the scheme as a way to increase recycling, reduce litter, and help achieve net zero ambitions.
“We will use that additional time to work with businesses, and Circularity Scotland, to address concerns with the scheme and ensure a successful launch next year,” he added. “We have also developed a package of measures to simplify and de-risk the scheme, and to support small businesses and hospitality in particular.”
Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet & PlasticFree, criticised the decision to delay. She said, “Scotland’s achievements include penicillin, the telephone and fingerprinting. That the same country should struggle so much over introducing a small, refundable charge for drinks containers is disappointing to say the least. At this rate, England may even get ahead.
“Deposit return schemes are used successfully all over Europe, and encourage people to think of their containers as something that lives on beyond their own consumption. Increasingly, we should be seeing permanent packaging in all kinds of areas from meat and vegetables to shampoo and conditioner. The future is about boxes and bottles which are common to the major brands and can be brought back to stores for washing and reuse time and again. This really shouldn’t be so hard.
“By the time we actually introduce DRS in the UK at large, brands and retailers will have leapfrogged to even simpler systems of pre-filled reusable standardised packaging. When we don’t have the infrastructure in place to recycle the waste we currently collect we must ask has DRS missed its original boat?”
