MPs will belatedly vote tomorrow on whether to support the legislation for the UK’s deposit return scheme, after the planned debate for last Thursday was bumped due to breaking news of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Sadly, it could be a case of whatever MPs on both sides of the house have to say counting for very little, compared with what is going on out in the real world.
The reality is that last week’s call by supermarket bosses, as revealed by The Grocer, to scrap the October 2027 start date for this seemingly cursed project, is yet another hammer blow for the DRS.
DRS timeline ’no longer feasible’
As well as growing fears over the threat of rising food inflation later in the year, supermarkets cited the decision by the Welsh government to pull out of a joint UK launch of the scheme, as their rationale. An already challenging timeline was now “no longer feasible”, they argued.
So the question facing the government and MPs on the opposition benches is not just whether they back a DRS (without glass) but also whether they back a scheme that doesn’t include Wales – and which would have to be imposed against the will of supermarkets, whose rollout of massively expensive infrastructure is seen as the central plank of the strategy.
Despite this, some remain glass half-full over DRS. Sarah Horner, UK & Ireland director at Reloop, claims that with polls showing 70% of the public support a nationwide DRS, “the usual complaints from some elements of the retail sector” should not be enough to stop the government from pushing ahead with the October 2027 start date.
Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, declared that “retailers must support” DRS, which would control the millions of tonnes of packaging they produce each year.
The brutal reality, however, is that the future of the DRS appears as uncertain as ever. The wise money surely has to be on yet another delay for a return scheme which MPs in Westminster have been supposedly pushing ahead with since 2018.
MPs must show leadership
It is even more galling for supporters considering the Irish DRS – which launched a year ago next month, just 26 months after regulations were published in Dublin – last week reported that it had collected 900 million bottles since then.
Ciaran Foley, the CEO of Re-turn, the Irish scheme’s administrator, described the figure as an “exciting milestone” to celebrate the first year of the scheme.
“The achievement of nearly one billion plastic bottles and cans returned is a testament to the growing support of the Irish people,” he declared.
In the UK, meanwhile, the process of appointing a scheme administrator, or deposit management organisation (DMO), which Defra has vowed to do by April, has been made even more difficult by the letter from the BRC that landed on environment secretary Steve Reed’s doormat before Christmas.
Leading supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s are key players in the bid to form a DMO, which also involves major drinks companies and drinks trade bodies and is overseen by accountants PwC. And with this collaborative bid the only serious game in town, calls for a delay from would-be members of the DMO itself can hardly be ignored.
Faced with this backdrop, it’s vital for the future of DRS that MPs voting tomorrow make clear where they stand. How key is DRS to their strategy? While it’s hard to see how they can impose the scheme against the will of retailers, it’s also time politicians showed more leadership, including getting the Welsh government back around the table.
Surely as a fellow Labour government that should not be beyond Starmer and co. Those who know the most about DRS have always said that a joined-up, UK-wide scheme is what matters the most. Now it’s time to prove it.
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