Westminster to save Scots again – after what looks like another abject failure on the part of the SNP / Scottish Greens. Now I accept that I haven’t paid much attention to the Scottish Deposit Return Scheme, and I also accept that the planet is pretty screwed if we don’t get to grips with the environmental disaster that appears to be getting worse year on year.
But like I said I had not thought much about this scheme until really yesterday when a friend noted that they thought it was a disaster, and a tax on the poor while hoping that sadly Scots needed Westminster to come in and save it from this disaster. Now anything that involves Lorna Slater of the Scottish Greens is pretty much guaranteed to be shit, we all accept that now, just another of many elevated way above her level of competence.
Now, this scheme will see a 20p deposit charged on each drink bought and redeemed on each empty scheme container returned. For multipacks, the deposit is charged per drink in a pack rather than per pack. For example, for a multipack containing six drinks, the deposit would be £1.20.
Not only does this scheme add more to the cost of the living crisis we are all currently living in any unclaimed deposits
Any deposits that are not redeemed by the consumer will be held by the Scheme Administrator and used to help fund the operation of the scheme. The Scheme Administrator can advise on the retention period for unredeemed deposits.
There are successful schemes across Europe that have been running for years and years so this is not something new. There will be return points in various places, possibly vending machines as well. The concerns I share with my friend are
Will companies just use this scheme as a way of passing on all of the costs to the consumer?
Will enough people change their behavior or will they just suck it up as more cost of living increases?
Has there been anything like enough publicity and education around the scheme for the wider public?
Alister Jack, secretary of state for Scotland, said the scheme would add to the cost-of-living crisis, telling the Commons last week the bar for an exemption “is very high indeed” adding: “Aldi will sell 12 bottles of Scottish water for £1.59. Under this scheme, that will become £3.99. If that is not inflationary, if that is not adding to people’s cost of living, I do not know what is.” (The Scotsman)
It’s hard not to disagree with the Governor General of colonial Scotland on this one and just yet another disaster from the SNP / Scottish Green coalition Government. There needs to be action on waste, especially plastic waste, cans, and bottles. But when recycling is not the easiest thing in the world for many communities and when councils no longer collect glass waste for example it feels a bit rich to impose a scheme that both will add to the cost of living for all of us, and one that is so poorly publicized and explained it just feels like a stealth tax.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
I remember collecting lemonade bottles as a kid. I paid for my first fishing permit by hauling 13 lemonade bottles down to the local sweet shop in two, rapidly failing carrier bags.
DEFRA did a cost-benefit analysis for England and Wales in 2021, https://consult.defra.gov.uk/environment/consultation-on-introducing-a-drs/supporting_documents/Impact%20Assessment.pdf It’s full of interesting figures. I’m not sure if I’m reading it correctly so some of the following might be incorrect:
The cost to business per year was £350 million or so.
The net benefit over 10 years was £6 billion but the value of not having bottles littering the place was priced at £12 billion which probably distorted the benefits way above what is reasonable.
More interesting was the carbon emissions would increase with all those lorries transporting the bottles back for recycling.
I’d be interested to know whether scale was considered by the Slater scheme. Being a tenth of the size the program costs are likely to be much, much higher north of the border. That meant business would be shouldering a much higher proportion of the costs. No wonder they were against it. It would have also put them at a disadvantage generally in the UK.
The most interesting figure from the report was that half the bottles would chucked in the rubbish anyway.
Stuart
It appears our scheme is not so great, business have said it is expensive as they would and will pass on the cost. Recycling in the EU by local authorities is far better with far more reuse of containers so people don’t have to recycle as much and have higher success rates. I would question any financial report from any government agency in our colony, when have they ever been right. It just feels like a stealth tax to me which allows the Scottish Government to believe they are doing something for the environment where moving to ensure companies use as few different kinds of plastic could make a bigger difference. I am no expert but I think without a long term program of information and education, improved local recycling then this scheme just becomes another costly burden on people because people as we know are lazy and ignorant unless they see the benefit to themselves and if I knew little of this scheme, and I am possibly slightly more informed, then what hope is there. I asked my Mum and brother what they knew of the scheme, but nothing never heard of it.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
Head bummer at Circularity Scotland paid £300k! Aye it’s a clusterbourach. It’s not just the extra cost that will in its entirety be passed onto the consumer -it’s finding somewhere to recycle the things as that costs the seller as well plus if you aren’t registered with the scheme you can’t sell your product in Scotland. Which is why Jack will intervene again – this time refusing an exemption from the Internal Market Act.
Does it work elsewhere? Yes. Did Lorna Slater bother her backside finding out how it worked elsewhere. No!
Everything the Scot Greens touch turns to shite.
PP
From what I have read, Scotland has managed to make a scheme that will not work, is expensive, and will cost ordinary people more who will not in many cases return the containers while there has been little to no publicity or education that we can call informative or useful. Typical cluster as you say and just more poor policy-making from the Scottish Government. We can all accept that there are things needing to be done with single-use containers, but this is not the answer I don’t think. I watched a program a few years ago where it was suggested that companies should be forced to use the same types of plastic to make recycling more cost-effective from the thousands that are out there and while there are something like 7 categories it was felt this made little difference. There are no easy answers but for myself this is just another tax on the poor.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
The issue isn’t what they say it is. We need to increase rates of recycling, but the real issue is the complacency and confusion with what can and cannot be recycled and that’s made worse by having different answers to those questions based on whether your local facilities can cope with certain materials or not.
This scheme put the onus on the public to recycle, to reclaim their deposits, when really we should be making recycling as simple as possible for the public. All sorting of rubbish should be taken out of the hands of the public. This role should be performed by experts at recycling centres. If we do this, our rates of recycling would be massively boosted.
I’m borderline evangelical about recycling. My neighbours would probably accuse me of being a pain in the arse about it. What it means to me is that I’ll have to stop doing what I already do and now take empties to a central deposit site, otherwise I’ll be out of pocket. The scheme punishes those of us who already know what the right thing to do is and do it, to the tune of 20p per item.
Best not to mention that Lorna Slater didn’t think to consult with schemes elsewhere in the world about how they achieved a successful scheme. That’s a whole different level of inept.
kiltedsplendour
We are the same in our house, there is only me and my son but we put out one black bag every two weeks everything else we recycle. In Dundee, there are a lot of tenements so recycling is poor at best but it doesn’t help that the council doesn’t recycle glass so you see it in the black bags on top of there not being enough bins, etc. We also need a proper education program to encourage and teach people, it just feels like everything this government does is about punishment in far too many ways. The bottle scheme will add to people using their cars and many people won’t bother so in effect it becomes a stealth tax which is just wrong especially in the current climate where everything has went up by 7% on average while wages for most of us remain depressed and in effect a pay cut.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
I’m of the same mind as Panda Paws. When I discovered that Slater hadn’t even looked at other countries schemes it was very much a ‘head in hands’ moment accompanied by a long a drawn out groan.
I remember in the early 80’s standing by a vessel in a Dutch shipyard and staying in a hotel. I was impressed by the system that allowed me to take my empty beer bottles to a machine outside the supermarket next door and get a printed receipt that I could put to good use buying more beer in said supermarket. I was in the Netherlands a couple of weeks ago and the same system is still working. I may hastily add that I was not feeding beer bottles into the machine. Just buying cheese and salad. Changed days.
capnandy2
Everything this Government touches seems to turn to shit, it is just a stealth tax on the poor as far as I am concerned unless it leads with an educational program and less cost to the consumer. The Scottish Government are just so out of touch now and maybe we do need a period of unionists in control and re-set. Slater is just a clown, I can’t even believe anyone would vote for her she is so poor. We are way behind the EU and this scheme will do little to improve it to be honest.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce