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After months of SNP confusion, dither and delay, they should now welcome our plan

By ALISTER JACK SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND

WE ALL have to do our bit for the environment. Today that is a simple truth agreed by everyone but it has not always been the case. For people of my generation, preserving our planet was a minority concern when we were growing up.

Half a century ago there were a few visionary voices – notably that of His Majesty the King – warning we must use our resources more wisely.

Growing scientific evidence of the damage we are doing to our environment has proved them right. We have also listened to our children.

They have grown up with a sharp sense of our need to act and we owe it to them – and their children – to change our ways.

Recycling and reducing waste is a small but vital part of that.

Think of the everyday items we use. Think of the raw materials and energy required to make them.

Then consider the wastefulness of throwing them in a landfill site when it is possible to recycle and use the materials again.

The UK Government and the devolved administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are all agreed that introducing a deposit return scheme would be a good way to nudge us towards better habits.

When such a scheme comes into place, a few pence will be added to the purchase price of drinks cans and bottles to be reclaimed when they are returned for recycling.

Across the UK we want to increase recycling rates and we also want to cut littering. Most people agree with the idea of a deposit return scheme, or DRS, in principle.

But we have to get the detail right. In particular, we need a system that does not create barriers to doing business in the UK and which does not disadvantage businesses and consumers in Scotland.

Problems with the Scottish Government’s proposed scheme have been widely reported in The Scottish Mail on Sunday and across the media.

Businesses, which must bear the cost of the scheme, have been left in a state of confusion for far too long because of the Scottish Government’s haphazard planning.

Drinks producers and retailers alike complained they were being asked to sign up for a scheme without knowing how much it would cost them.

Even the Scottish Government is unable to say that its scheme as it stands will not lead to a reduction of choice on Scottish supermarket shelves. The UK Government does not believe this is fair. Consumers should have access to the same selection of products, whether you live in Nairn or Northampton.

In the rest of the UK, a number of producers and suppliers, including craft brewers, warned they would have to pull out of the Scottish market because the cost of joining the DRS was prohibitive.

Some even began labelling products ‘not for sale in Scotland’.

Incredibly, a historic whisky brand, Deerstalker, which is mainly exported to the Continent, also faced disappearing from sale in Scotland after 150 years on the market.

If Scotch is being forced out of Scotland, it is a sure sign something is not working.

The fact is, setting up multiple deposit return schemes in different parts of the UK was always going to require compromise and eventual agreement on alignment.

The UK Government and the devolved administrations must work together to achieve our shared ambition of increasing recycling rates without punishing consumers or creating unnecessary burdens for business. Our proposals do just that.

We have now cleared the way to establish fully aligned schemes covering the whole of the UK.

And it means you’ll get your money back wherever you go. Buy a can of Coke in Dumfries and you can reclaim your deposit in Carlisle. For businesses, it means joining one scheme, not four, with consistent costs across the UK. Barriers to trade within the single UK market are removed, which is so important for the Scottish economy as 60 per cent of our ‘exports’ go to our neighbours in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

They will not face unnecessary costs that would only be passed onto consumers, the last thing anyone wants to see. Consumer choice will also be protected.

Our aligned deposit return schemes will cover plastic and metal bottles but not glass.

There are compelling arguments against including glass. For a start, local councils are already very good at recycling glass through kerbside collections and bottle banks.

They collect so much glass and do it so efficiently that all but the most rural local authorities are able to make a profit from it.

If drinks bottles were removed from their existing schemes, they would struggle to remain viable – a concern confirmed by Glasgow City Council’s warning that it would have to scrap its kerbside collections if the Scottish Government’s DRS included glass as planned.

What’s more, council schemes separate out clear, brown and green glass, allowing old bottles to be melted down to make new.

As the Scottish Daily Mail reported this week, the glass industry has warned that under DRS bottles would have to be crushed and turned into aggregate – a much less green result.

I am confident that drinks producers and retailers across the UK will welcome our proposals.

Whilst the Scottish scheme will indeed go ahead of the UK-wide one, these reasonable proposals will give businesses the confidence that they need that the preparation for one scheme will be preparation for all schemes. They have consistently called for a UK-wide solution to this issue and our reasonable offer achieves that objective.

After months of confusion, dither and delay from the Scottish Government, it should welcome the plan. I hope it wastes no more time in bringing forward a DRS that works for consumers, businesses and, most importantly of all, helps protect our precious environment.

Proposals give businesses the confidence they need

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2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

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