Environment secretary of state, Michael Grove, today unveiled a consultation over the possibility of imposing a deposit on drinks containers in England.
The measure was officially launched by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as Mr Gove gave a speech on the environment at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.
The consultation notes that England already has good infrastructure for household recycling and suggests that the possibility of a drinks container deposit could be used to target ‘on the go’ materials.
Drinks containers, including plastic bottles, are under discussion for a deposit scheme
A Voluntary and Economic Incentives Working Group has been established and this will look at voluntary ways to to target particular types of item or product but will also consider “regulatory options and measures to target particular types of item or product.”
Explaining the aims of the consultation (which closes on 30 October 2017), Defra said that “In this wider context of improving local environmental quality, and potentially increasing recycling, as its first piece of work, Ministers have asked the Working Group to look at regulatory or voluntary measures to reduce littering and/or improve the recycling of drinks containers. We have also specifically been asked to consider the advantages and disadvantages of different types of well-designed and well run deposit and reward and return schemes for drinks containers.”
The department points out that England already has good infrastructure for household recycling, w”ith household recycling kerbside collection in place since the 1990s. Almost all local authorities in England now collect plastic bottles as part of their recycling services. Increasingly, however, many products are consumed outside the home, including on-the-go, and surveys of commonly littered items frequently feature food and drink packaging, amongst other products.”
The scope of the enquiry is therefore “focused on commonly littered but potentially high-value drinks containers”.
And, the consultation notes that any recommended intervention needs to realise these objectives, whilst having a positive or limited negative effect on other related policies. “In order to do this, we need to understand the full picture of costs and impacts, benefits and disadvantages of deposit and reward and return schemes or other policy instruments for drinks containers.”
CPRE
As a member of the Litter Strategy Advisory Group, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has committed to provide the Secretariat for the Working Group. CPRE has long been an advocate of a deposit scheme and its case won support from former prime minister David Cameron. But, Defra says that “CPRE will manage analysis of evidence submitted but will not itself submit evidence”.
The Working Group will input to the analysis process and proposals to Ministers based on the evidence will represent their consensus view. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) officials will maintain oversight of the whole process.
Michael Gove has spoken of the threat to marine life from plastics
Beverage container deposit schemes in South Australia and Denmark were highlighted by Defra as successful with 90% and 80% return rates in contrast to the 57% recycling figure reported for the UK.
Marine life
Mr Gove said: “We must protect our oceans and marine life from plastic waste if we are to be the first generation to leave our environment in a better state than we found it.
“That means tackling the rise in plastic bottles entering our waters by making it simpler and easier to recycle and dispose of them appropriately.
“Today we are launching a call for evidence to help us understand how reward and return schemes for plastic bottles and other drinks containers could work in England.
“This approach has already seen great success in other countries such as Denmark in curbing plastic pollution and we want to hear people’s ideas on how we could make it work in England.
“This adds to the progress we have already made in cleaning up our oceans by significantly reducing plastic bag use and drawing up one of the world’s toughest bans on plastic microbeads.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
