Where is the Deposit Return Scheme Campaign Response

Thank you to the many constituents who have recently go in touch with me regarding the Deposit Return Scheme.

I have now raised this with Rebecca Pow, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity, and have received the following response, copied and pasted for ease of reference: -

“Following initial consultation in 2019, we are publishing detailed proposals for two of our major packaging and collection reforms that will boost recycling, make producers more responsible for the packaging they place on the market and use, that will also step-up our war against plastic pollution and litter. The following two consultations are being launched for a period of 10 weeks. We will provide final details for each reform later this year.

• A Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers: covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This will ensure that billions more drinks bottles and cans are recycled and reused and not condemned to landfill or littered in our communities. With consumers paying a small deposit when purchasing an in-scope drinks container, they will be incentivised to take their empty bottle or can to a return point to get their deposit back. This will ensure that we increase recycling, capture high-quality material for reprocessing, and reduce the number of bottles and cans littered in our streets and countryside.

• Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging: UK wide. This will see producers meeting the full net cost of managing the packaging that they place on the market once it becomes waste. Higher fees will be paid by those producers who use packaging that is more difficult to recycle or reuse, producers will need to meet higher recycling targets, and we are proposing that obligated producers will be incentivised to reduce litter and keep our communities clean. The third of our major reforms, which will see consistent recycling collections for all households and businesses in England, will also be going out to consultation shortly.

These reforms will help the UK build back better and greener from the pandemic and boost our global leadership in tackling climate change and plastic pollution. As hosts of COP26 this year, President of the G7 and a key player in the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), we are leading the international climate change agenda and our landmark waste reforms will help bring government, society and the world

https://together-for-our-planet.ukcop26.org/

Through our world-leading Environment Bill we are transforming the way we deal with our waste. Tackling plastic pollution lies at the heart of our efforts, and we have already taken steps to ban microbeads in rinse-off personal care products, cut supermarket sales of single-use plastic bags by 95% and prohibit the supply of plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds.”

I hope that the above information is useful and as ever if you would like to discuss this further or any other matter, then please do not hesitate to contact me.

cherilyn.mackrory.mp@parliament.uk