Aberdeenshire Council is formally calling for Scottish local authorities (LAs) to be involved in the design of a deposit-return system.

The council unanimously agreed on Thursday (10 March) to send a letter to Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead, pledging support for a DRS and highlighting the need to include LAs in its development.

A motion, tabled by Councillor Paul Johnston, the authority’s Co-leader of the Democratic Independent and Green group, said that LA input was needed to support ‘a well-designed DRS, prioritising a reduction in littering, improvements to recycling rates, ease of use for consumers and small businesses, reductions in the volume of household waste and waste collected from public bins, and the delivery of cost savings to local taxpayers’.

This is thought to be the first instance of a Scottish LA formally and publically supporting a DRS in Scotland.

A Scottish DRS has been under consideration since early 2015, when the Scottish Government commissioned Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) to carry out a feasibility study on a potential national deposit-return system. However, Lochhead said in December that more consideration is needed before a decision can be made, particularly around the issues of retailer costs and implications for small stores under any potential scheme.

Further research from ZWS has now been commissioned by Lochhead, who has also pledged to discuss the potential opportunities of a DRS with ministers from across the UK. The Welsh Government is also currently considering the implementation of a DRS.

Evidence of win-win situation ‘mounting up’

Cllr Johnston said: “Many people have fond memories of bottle deposits and we know that a modern deposit-return system could work here just as well as it does in so many places around the world.

“The international evidence is mounting that this is a win-win situation, an opportunity to save substantial sums of money and protect the environment at the same time.

“Better use of resources means we can reduce waste and litter, boost employment in the circular economy and contribute to tackling climate change. Aberdeenshire Council’s leaders will now be writing to the Scottish Government to support the introduction of deposit-return for Scotland.”

Support for system

The implementation of a DRS has been supported by the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland (APRS). A poll carried out by the APRS’s ‘Have You Got The Bottle?’ campaign last year found that 78.8 per cent of respondents supported a DRS, with just 8.5 per cent opposed.

APRS Director John Mayhew told The Herald, a Glasgow-based newspaper: “It’s great to add Aberdeenshire Council to our list of supporters for a Scottish deposit return system, a list which now includes recycling businesses and small retailers as well as charities with hundreds of thousands of members between them.

“We know deposit return works exceptionally well elsewhere, helping to reduce litter and carbon emissions. Without this change, it will be almost impossible to meet Scotland’s recycling targets.”

Commenting on the potential of a DRS, Betsy Reed, Campaign Director for ‘Have You Got The Bottle?’, said: “Evidence from elsewhere shows that deposit-return just works. People in Scotland have taken to improved kerbside systems over the past few years and the recycling rate has risen to around 41 per cent. Deposit-return would make it easy for them to return empty cans and bottles to be recycled when they’re on the go.

“There are some in big business who don’t want it because it means challenging the status quo. But we know from international research and experience that it works. It would be a shame for Scottish businesses and local taxpayers alike to miss out simply because industry are resistant to change.”

DRS would be ‘costly and inconvenient for consumers’

A possible DRS has not been universally welcomed, with the Packaging Recycling Group Scotland (PRGS), a newly-formed group representing over 30 trade organisations and companies from the drinks and food packaging supply chain, a leading opponent.

As part of evidence submitted during the ZWS feasibility study last year, the group said that the proposed DRS ‘fails on nearly every practical level and ignores current consumer behaviour’.

PRGS’s evidence stated that there has as of yet been no proof that the system would boost recycling or reduce litter and that the growth in online shopping and home deliveries, high support for current local authority kerbside recycling and the ultimate hit on the consumer wallet the current proposed scheme would create have not been considered.

Jane Bickerstaffe, spokeswoman for the PRGS, told The Herald: “The reality is that a deposit scheme would be costly and inconvenient for consumers, and result in a substantial loss of income from local authorities’ own kerbside recycling services.

“Diverting some materials away from kerbside recycling would also increase carbon emissions by increasing the number of vehicles on the road. A far better solution would be to accept the PRGS offer to support the recycling charter.

“Local authorities’ kerbside collections have achieved good rates of recycling, covering all materials, not just drinks containers, and the recycling charter is the way to work together to achieve even more.”

Learn more about the arguments for and against DRSs in comment pieces from Resource 71.