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IN FOCUS | 23 www.italchamind.eu Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme Scotland is the first UK region to announce plans for a drink containers’ deposit return scheme T he Scottish Government is to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks containers. The objective is to reduce litter and improve recycling rates, undertaking a significant step towards achieving Scotland’s zero waste ambition. UK-wide customers spend an estimated £13bn a year on bottles of plastic and beverages. More than 3bn bottles are incinerated, sent to landfill or abandoned, polluting roads, landscape, and marine environment. During the last few years, Scotland elaborated and implemented successful recycling strategies, reducing waste and fostering circular economy. With the deposit return scheme, the Scottish Government aims to further improve the quality of recycling and encourage wider behaviour changes in the use of materials, delivering the maximum economic and social benefit. Working closely with a range of stakeholders, Zero Waste Scotland designed a scheme tailored to meet Scotland’s specific needs, taking into account equalities and social justice potential problems deriving from the scheme implementation. The Scottish Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform announced the scheme design in Parliament on 8th May 2019. It has been estimated that the scheme will save the equivalent of 4m tons of CO2 over 25 years, capturing up to 90% of the target material in Scotland. The same goals have already been reached in countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Germany, where similar strategies were implemented, having registered even higher recycling rates. At the same time, the scheme also moved some critics from small businesses, such as take-away restaurants, as these measures could discourage customers from buying beverages on site. In this regard, the Scottish Government reassured that they will consider amendments to the project, making exceptions for small businesses. HOWTHE RETURN SCHEME WORKS As it happens for other countries, the idea is simple: consumers will pay a small deposit (20p) when purchasing a drink in a single-use container, to then receive their deposit back when returning the empty bottle or can. Businesses selling drinks to be opened and consumed on-site will not have to charge the deposit to the public, only being required to return the containers they sell on their own premises. On the contrary, online retailers will have to comply with the new regulations. PET plastic bottles, glass bottles, steel and aluminium cans will be included in the scheme, as well as all containers above 50 ml and up to 3 litres in size. Returning a drinks container should be as easy as buying one, with an estimated number of about 17,000 drop-off points around Scotland. There will also be a range of ways consumers can get their deposit back, for example as cash at a till, tokens or discount vouchers or even digitally. It is the Government’s intention to appoint a private, not-for-profit company, to run the Deposit Return Scheme, in order to ensure its independence. ·