Kerbside sort versus co-mingled; reward schemes or PAYT; weekly collections or AWC; incineration versus, well, no incineration: divisive issues are part and parcel of the UK waste scene, and once battle lines are drawn, it often seems as though there’s little room for compromise. Nowhere is this more true than with deposit-refund schemes (DRSs), an issue that occasionally rears its head and engenders very strong opposing opinions indeed.

The issue is so contentious, in fact, that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) quashed (or embargoed for five years, anyway) a Defra-commissioned report on DRSs for fear it would invite an ‘unwelcome debate’ into the established Packaging Recovery Note (PRN) system. But more on that report in a moment.

Although there are many different ways to institute a DRS, the basic concept is simple: a surcharge is applied to a potentially-polluting product and is refunded when the product is successfully returned, thereby avoiding pollution. It aims to encourage reuse or recycling where it would be easy to discard the offending item as waste or litter; DRSs are most commonly applied to drinks packaging – whether plastic, metal or glass – though can just as equally target hazardous or other materials.

The aforementioned quashed report, ‘Deposit Return Systems for Packaging: Applying International Experience to the UK’, produced by Oakdene Hollins in 2005 and finally released in 2010, usefully divided packaging DRSs into two main types: ‘European style’ and ‘US style’. The former is predominantly aimed at encouraging refilling, and requires a large deposit of around 15-30p, as well as a return rate around 90 per cent, to justify costs. The latter is intended more to increase recycling and reduce litter, requires a deposit in the region of 5p, and would be expected to achieve return rates between 65 and 70 per cent.

The report concluded that a European-style system wouldn’t be suitable for the UK (and, it turns out, is even struggling in Germany), as the capital costs would be ‘prohibitive’ since the day of the refillable bottle has passed: ‘[I]ncreasing product differentiation in order to keep a competitive edge in a rapidly segmenting market makes the prospect of a voluntary switch to standard refillable containers ever less relevant.’ It’s as sad an indictment of our linear economy as ever we’ve heard.

That being said, the report saw potential for introducing a mandatory US-style system in the UK; the authors calculated that the associated costs of £24-70 million would be offset by a surplus of £80-120 million coming from unredeemed deposits. Other benefits could include targeting containers discarded away from home and the possibility of directing money through social organisations.

But not everyone agrees. The most vocal opponents are normally the businesses that would have to change their systems, labels and/or costs as a result of a change (see page 8; Coca-Cola and Schweppes recently took the government of Australia’s Northern Territory to court to kill its ‘Cash for Containers’ bill – indicating it’s not just a contentious issue in the UK!). They’re not alone in their opposition, though, with common arguments against such schemes including: they divert material away from council-operated kerbside schemes; expanding council schemes would be more cost-effective, while simultaneously targeting more materials; deposits on certain items would further confuse consumers already baffled by differing recycling systems; the required infrastructure would be too complicated to set up; and DRSs can actually increase litter, as people upset whole bins to get at the containers inside.

A more recent report from Eunomia for the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), ‘Have We Got the Bottle?’, claims to refute many of the arguments against DRSs, alleging some assertions are based on little (or no) evidence. The report says, for instance, that these schemes could actually save councils up to £160 million a year, thanks to efficiencies on kerbside logistics, sorting and litter cleanup (it quotes US research that DRSs eliminate 81 per cent of deposit-related litter and 33-38 per cent of total litter, as containers are more voluminous than typically-littered items like cigarettes and bottle caps).

Following on from CPRE’s calls for such a system to be implemented in the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron asked then-Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman to “look at this issue and see if we can take it forward”. And while there hasn’t been much of a peep out of Defra since, you can be sure the debate won’t be going away any time soon. With that in mind, we’ve invited commentators to look at the issue in more detail on the following pages, so you can decide for yourself which side you’re on in this particular waste row!

Read Jane Bickerstaffe's point of view on deposit schemes - 'Not so simple'.

Read Iain Gulland's point of view on deposit schemes - 'Just rewards'.