Motion to approve deposit return scheme regulations

A motion relating to “environmental protection” is scheduled for Thursday 16 January 2025 in the name of Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The motion is “That the draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 25 November 2024, be approved.” The regulations are laid under the affirmative procedure, meaning that they must be actively approved by both Houses of Parliament.

The draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 would establish a deposit return scheme (DRS) for drinks containers in England and Northern Ireland. The government anticipates that this DRS would launch on 1 October 2027.

What is a deposit return scheme?

In a deposit return scheme (DRS), consumers are charged a sum of money as a deposit up-front when they buy a single-use container (normally for drinks products). This can be redeemed when the empty container is returned to a designated return point; this might be to a shop or to a reverse vending machine.

Rationale for a DRS

UK consumers use an estimated 14 billion plastic drinks bottles and nine billion drinks cans a year.[1] Litter composition analysis from the charity Keep Britain Tidy has found that small plastic bottles and non-alcoholic cans together make up 43% of the volume of all litter.[2] The government has said that a DRS will increase recycling rates of certain materials, reduce littering, and promote a circular economy.[3]

Devolution and United Kingdom Internal Market Act considerations

Waste and resources are devolved policy areas. The UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive could legislate for separate DRSs if they wished to do so.

The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (UKIMA) means that (in general) goods that can be sold or recognised in one part of the UK should be able to be sold or recognised in any other part, regardless of what the law in that other part of the UK says.

The UK Government’s July 2020 white paper on the UK internal market explained that having different DRS schemes across the UK (for example with different materials in scope and different fee levels) could cause complexities affecting how labelling, costs and reverse vending machines would work.

The UKIMA has a procedure which can allow applicants to seek exclusions from the application of the act’s market access principles. An exclusion would potentially allow schemes to differ between parts of the UK.

UK plans for deposit return

The power to make regulations to establish a DRS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is provided by section 54 of the Environment Act 2021. For Scotland, it is section 84 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

Proposals for DRSs across the UK have been considered for several years and there have been several rounds of consultation in the different parts of the UK. For background see section 7.4 of Commons Library briefing, Plastic Waste (March 2024).

Joint plans for a DRS in England and Northern Ireland are expected to launch on 1 October 2027.[4] The materials to be included in the scheme are single use polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, steel, and aluminium drinks containers, but not glass.[5]

The Welsh Government was originally part of this joint plan, but it has announced it will delay launching a DRS in Wales, saying it needed more time to consider how glass containers would be a part of its scheme.[6]

The Scottish Government had originally planned to introduce its own scheme, separate to and in advance of that of the rest of the UK. This was delayed by complexities to do with the inclusion of glass and how it fitted in with UKIMA considerations. It is now expected that the Scottish Government will align its scheme to match the one in England and Northern Ireland to begin in October 2027.[7] For further information see Scottish Government, Managing waste: deposit return scheme.

The draft regulations

The draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 set out:

• the scope of the DRS and materials included (single-use drinks containers made of PET plastic, steel and aluminium)
• the definition of a “drink” and “container” (to include single-use bottles or cans for water or beverages for human consumption, with capacity of at least 150 millilitres but no more than three litres of liquid)
• the role of retailers, drinks producers and suppliers
• the establishment, appointment and functions of the scheme administrator, to be known as the Deposit Management Organisation (DMO)
• provision for monitoring and enforcement activities by the Environment Agency and local authority trading standards departments (in respect of England) and the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA, in respect of Northern Ireland)
• the roles of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Secretary of State, the DAERA ministers and regulators
• provision for appeals in respect of certain decisions to be brought to the First tier Tribunal in England, and to the appeals commission in Northern Ireland
• provision in respect of the treatment of deposit items from any DRSs established in Wales and Scotland. The regulations provide for the DMO to make arrangements to return deposit items that originate from overseas DRS schemes[8]

The regulations do not set the level for the deposit return fee, referred to as the “relevant amount”. This will be determined by the DMO. The government has said that it expects to appoint the DMO in April 2025.

Comment on DRS plans

There have been mixed responses to the announcement of a DRS.

The Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC, representing local government recycling officers) has argued against the DRS, saying that it would “bring limited improvement in overall capture rates at the expense of cost, both financially and regarding environmental impact and disruptive infrastructure.” LARAC would like to see money invested in making improvements to local authority kerbside recycling instead.[9]

Similarly, the National Association of Waste Disposal Officers (NAWDO) and the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) have encouraged the government to focus on related policy measures, such as simpler household recycling and reform of extended packaging producer responsibility rules, instead of introducing a DRS.[10] This view was echoed by the Recycling Association, the trade association for recycling companies, which questioned whether people actually want to take their containers to a collection point away from the home.[11]

The DRS has been supported by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF, the membership body for food and drink manufacturers). It said that the DRS would mean that drinks containers will be able to be recycled and used again more efficiently and easily. It called for a joined up scheme across all parts of the UK, operating under the same rules and with the same labels.[12]

The charity, the Marine Conservation Society has also expressed support for the DRS, calling it “a step in the right direction to reduce drinks-related litter such as plastic bottles and aluminium drinks cans.”[13]

Glass inclusion/exclusion

The DRS in England and Northern Ireland established by these draft regulations would not include glass. The question of which materials should be included in the DRS has proved to be a contentious issue. The glass industry has argued against including glass, saying that it would increase cost and complexity by including a heavier material that breaks easily and can be difficult to transport and store safely.[14] However, environmental groups such as Plastic Planet and City to Sea have favoured including glass, arguing that it would reduce the environmental impact of glass litter and increase recycling rates of a widely used material.[15]

The House of Lords secondary legislation committee scrutinised the draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024, in its December 2024 report.[16] The committee asked the government to respond to the exclusion of glass. The government said that excluding glass was due to cost, complexity and consumer burden issues. For example, that many retailers would need to increase shop storage space or retrofit to accommodate the larger reverse vending machines needed for glass. As a result, the up-front investment required from industry would increase. The government also noted that including glass would also lead to divergence of scope on the island of Ireland since the Republic of Ireland’s DRS does also not include glass.[17]

Availability of return points

The House of Lords Committee also considered the provision of return points. It commented that, “…to minimise the costs to consumers, it will be important for the Government to ensure that the DMO delivers a comprehensive network of return points, especially in rural areas, and takes into account the needs of more vulnerable consumers in particular who may find it difficult to reach some return points in their area.”

[1] HM Government, Environmental Improvement Plan, January 2023, p155

[2] Keep Britain Tidy, Litter composition analysis: summary report (PDF), March 2020, p2

[3] HM Government, Draft explanatory memorandum to the draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 (PDF), para 4.1

[4] HM Government, UK government update: Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers, 19 November 2024

[5] Beverage Containers: Deposit Return Schemes, UIN HL3163, answered on 2 January 2025

[6] Welsh Government, Written Statement: The Development of a Deposit Return Scheme for Wales, 18 November 2024

[7] Scottish Parliament, Question reference: S6W-32027, answered on 17 December 2024

[8] HM Government, Draft explanatory memorandum to the draft Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2024 (PDF)

[9] LARAC, Containers (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations laid in Parliament, 26 November 2024

[10] Lets Recycle, NAWDO: ‘DRS changes are generating uncertainty’, 22 November 2024 and Circular, Circular Economy Minister says DRS to launch before Oct 2027, 1 August 2024

[11] The Recycling Association, Time to give up on DRS folly, November 2024

[12] Circular, Circular Economy Minister says DRS to launch before Oct 2027, 1 August 2024

[13] Marine Conservation Society, Deposit Return Scheme, November 2024

[14] British Glass, Evidence shows glass in Deposit Return Schemes drives increase in plastic (accessed 13 March 2024)

[15] Edie, UK’s Deposit Return Scheme for drinks packaging set to exclude glass, 20 January 2023

[16] House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Eleventh report session 2023-24, 12 December 2024

[17] House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Eleventh report session 2023-24, 12 December 2024