Scottish DRS delayed until 2025
The Scottish Government has officially announced a delay to the launch of its Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) until October 2025, following weeks of speculation as to the future of the initiative and a UK-government enforced exemption of glass.
The scheme, which would add a small, refundable deposit to the price of a bottle or can of drink in shops, was meant to go live in March 2024. However, it will now be pushed back to the second half of 2025 at the earliest, in order to coincide with the UK-wide scheme, ministers said.
The news was broken by MP Lorna Slater, minister for green skills, circular economy and biodiversity, who is also leader of the Scottish initiative, in Parliament this afternoon.
She accused her Westminster colleagues of “sabotaging” a Scottish DRS, while adding that the UK government had failed to act “in good faith” by scuppering Scotland’s aim to go ahead with a DRS on its own terms.
“I told parliament yesterday that our scheme cannot proceed as planned. The refusal of the UK government to budge on glass makes that obvious,” Slater said.
“As of today, it is now clear that we have been left with no other option than to delay the launch of Scotland’s DRS until October 2025 at the earliest, based on the UK government's current stated aspirations.”
Last week, it emerged that the UK government had overruled plans for Scotland to include glass as part of DRS, with glass now to be fully excluded both north and south of the border. Now, only PET plastic bottles and aluminium or steel cans can be included.
Westminster cited competition rules under the Internal Market Act (IMA) for the enforced exemption. The IMA states that all businesses across the UK face the same regulations in order to prevent firms in one part being advantaged or disadvantaged.
The Federation of Independent Retailers (the Fed) has welcomed today’s decision.
Mo Razzaq, the organisation’s national deputy vice president, said: “It makes sense for the Scottish government to decide now to launch at the same time as the rest of the UK, because we are far from confident the deeply flawed Scottish scheme will be ready by its most recent launch date of March 2024. Businesses are angry and seriously short-changed because of the continuing confusion.”
Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association added: “It comes as a huge relief that Scotland’s fundamentally flawed Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) has been put on ice until at least October 2025, allowing for the consultation on and eventual introduction of a UK-wide scheme that excludes glass.
“The WSTA led the charge in arguing against the inclusion of glass in any DRS scheme on grounds it was unimplementable, would fail to achieve its aims and penalise some businesses and consumers. Put simply, excluding glass from the scheme is more environmentally friendly, will allow better quality glass recycling and avoids the risk of fraud. We are committed to reducing the amount of packaging placed on the market and improving recycling rates but have always said that this is best achieved by improving kerbside collection for glass.”
Both DRS schemes, which also include Wales and Northern Island, are now slated for October 2025.
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