The government is set to approve an industry bid to run the UK’s first deposit return scheme next week, with key supermarket and drinks company bosses in the frame to oversee the body.
Tesco impulse director Dave Beardmore (pictured) is among the list of industry names on the board of the UK Deposit Management Organisation (DMO), which is understood to have got the go-ahead from Defra for its bid to run the scheme.
Other figures on the board include Rebecca Oliver-Mooney, Co-op Group head of commercial, Heineken UK MD Boudewijn Haarsma and Julian Hunt, vice president public affairs and communications at Coca-Cola.
The Grocer revealed in February that supermarket bosses and drinks manufacturers had set aside their differences on the proposed DRS launch to submit a joint bid to run the UK scheme.
Sources said it would be a major fillip for DRS to see Defra hit its end of April deadline for appointing the DMO. Major doubts had been raised yet again over the future of DRS by the Welsh government’s shock decision to pull out of a UK-wide scheme, in November.
Despite the joint bid to run the scheme, major differences remain between supermarkets and manufacturers on the feasibility of the government’s proposed October 2027 launch date for DRS, which the BRC has claimed is “not feasible”.
The DMO will face key tasks including setting the retailer and producer fees for the DRS launch. Sources have expressed hope it will have learnt from the experiences of the ill-fated Circularity Scotland, the body set up to run Scotland’s failed pioneering DRS, which collapsed with more than £80m of debt in 2023.
However, In a speech last month, environment secretary Steve Reed said the launch of the industry-led DRS was a key plank in the government’s plans for a circular economy.
“Four in five of our plastic products are still made from virgin materials,” he said. “Our household recycling rates haven’t improved in 15 years.
“UK landfill sites absolutely astonishingly cover an area almost as big as Greater London. We burn 12 million tonnes of waste collected by councils every year.
“This is bad for the environment, bad for society and it’s bad for the economy. We are literally shovelling money down the drain.”
He added: “I know parts of the industry have concerns around the impacts of some of these reforms.
“We are listening. And we’ll keep listening to make sure the changes work for businesses.”
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