Retailers eagerly await Government's plans for DRS

Plenty of people will remember taking glass bottles back to the shop in return for a small amount of change. It seemed simple, the idea you could help recycling and in turn get rewarded for doing the right thing. In a nutshell that is what a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is.

Of course, like everything, the reality is that building a DRS is really very complex. Those promises of getting free money aren’t even accurate – the money you receive for returning the container is actually paid by you up front. When you add in the order of magnitude, scale increase of different drinks now available, the different material types, and the manifold ways in which how, where, and when we shop have changed, it’s clear that the scheme is a much larger undertaking than it first appears.

That’s why retailers have consistently called on the UK Government to carefully consider what it really wants from a Deposit Return Scheme. The industry’s experience in Scotland has shown how vital it is to build a scheme with the right foundations; and those foundations are dependent on ensuring the scheme can be practically delivered by the retail industry. From policy design to delivery, the industry will need practicable regulation and a critical pathway that will enable the scheme to operate seamlessly for consumers and businesses across the entire country.

Sadly, right now, it seems a long way off.

As it stands, the four UK nations have failed to effectively align their ambitions for the scheme and are ignoring industry-wide concerns over the now unrealistic timeline to launch a DRS by October 2025. Practicality also seems to be thrown out of the window. It’s clear there are ways to make the scheme work. Pretending it will work across the UK if the devolved governments do not align, is not one of them.

Industry needs to see clear alignment, at least on matters like which materials are in scope, how drinks are labelled, and the deposit levels, to allow for a unified message to spread across the UK. In order to proceed, the industry is awaiting a promised Government statement on DRS interoperability in January 2024. If the issues above aren’t resolved, then customers will be left confused and frustrated and the scheme will ultimately fail.

A UK DRS would be the second biggest scheme in Europe. It’s an enormous undertaking so must be done correctly from the start. We saw in Scotland just how costly and disruptive it can be when there is unclear and unaligned regulation and compressed timelines. A scheme of this size and scale needs strategic thinking and planning. For retail, this means a cost-efficient and optimised network of return points that will perfectly fit with the customers’ shopping journey.

Sequencing the three intertwined elements of the collections and packaging reforms – packaging EPR, consistent collections, and a DRS – will be most impactful and will allow for a wider understanding of the domino effect that one policy will have on another. Retailers, alongside other stakeholders, understand that these dominos need to fall in exactly the correct sequence and at the right time to deliver the change we wish to see in consumer behaviour.  

The industry is supportive of the overarching environmental objectives behind the UK Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy. Retailers are committed to improving the UK’s recycling rates and do not shy away from their responsibility to deliver change. However, at a time where resources are few and far between, we must prioritise the most impactful reforms first - like the packaging EPR and improved recycling collections – before understanding where and how the rest will fit in.

For any queries, please contact our policy leads Nadiya Catel-Arutyunova (BRC) and Ewan MacDonald-Russell (SRC).