Defra considers deposit to boost plastic bottle recycling

Speaking at the Recoup meeting last week, Mr Morley said that although there has been a 50% increase in the collection of plastic bottles in the UK over the last two years, the UK recycles only 5% of its plastic bottles, lagging behind other first world countries.

The minister said that in order to meet 2008 packaging waste recovery targets, a step change was needed in current practice. This step change could involve a deposit system, which might see the public offered money back if they recycle plastic bottles.

Mr Morley said: “While the government has no current plans to introduce a deposit system in the UK, following the report from the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the Department is currently undertaking work to see whether there would be any benefit to having a deposit system in the UK.

“Any such system would work alongside the existing packaging waste recovery system. Whatever the outcome of this study, we would not introduce any such system without taking the views of industry into account,” he said.

A deposit scheme for packaging has already been tried in Germany, but without much success. The scheme, introduced on one-way drinks containers to encourage the use of refillable containers, was blamed for a decrease in the country’s packaging waste recovery rate earlier this year (see letsrecycle.com story).

Struggle
The minister told his audience of plastics recyclers and local authorities that the UK would “struggle” with its packaging targets unless local authorities and those involved with the packaging Regulations work together to increase the amount of material extracted from the household waste stream.

Local authorities are not obliged to collect packaging waste materials under producer responsibility, and since lightweight materials like plastics do not help towards weight-based council recycling targets as much as heavier materials such as green waste, it has been largely pressure from the public that has pushed councils to collect plastic bottles so far.

Mr Morley said that “promotions of home composting are much better than green waste collections”, and suggested that there may be scope for the government to alter the local authority target system.

He said: “We do review what we measure local authority performance on. We have our 2008 targets but I think we are going to have to give some thought as to whether we should adjust the system, and consider as to how to credit plastics collections.”