On 20 January, the department for of environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) published the government’s response on the introduction of the DRS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (see letsrecycle.com story).
Within the response, the government describes the scheme as “industry-led” and says the as yet unappointed deposit management organisation is likely to be made up of industry bodies.
The NLWA, the waste disposal authority for seven north London boroughs, claims the repeated references to industry ignore the impact the DRS will likely have on councils, as well as “the valuable insight they could contribute to its development”.
The government wants the DRS, which will not launch until October 2025 at the earliest, to collect 90% of eligible drinks containers by the third year of its operation.
Local authorities will be left to extract and redeem the remaining 10% from their waste streams, though the NLWA says many called for this process to be managed through payments for extended producer responsibility for packaging.
The NLWA says there is “no clarity” on whether councils will be compensated for the lost revenue they would have received from the sale of materials and how individual local authority recycling rates will be affected.
‘Additional burden’
Cllr Clyde Loakes, chair of the NLWA, said: “It’s good news that the government is finally pushing ahead with the deposit return scheme, but I am concerned about the lack of local authority voice. It feels like we are sadly being largely ignored.
“It is going to become increasingly difficult to meet targets as we will lose a significant amount of recyclable material to this scheme and having to retrieve what is left to redeem the deposit ourselves will place an additional burden on us.”
Local authority representatives previously told letsrecycle.com high resale values for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and aluminium originating from kerbside collections helped keep council reprocessing contract costs down, either through subsidised gate fees or direct revenue shares (see letsrecycle.com story). Defra told letsrecycle.com they “do not anticipate” local authorities being disproportionately affected by the DRS’s introduction.
Materials
Wales will include PET plastic, aluminium and glass within the scope of its DRS, but England and Northern Ireland will exclude glass.
Cllr Loakes added: “Lots of countries have deposit return schemes where glass bottles are reused. It’s not a new or innovative idea, but apparently it’s still too difficult for this government to consider.”
