For quite a while, even mentioning the acronym ‘DRS’ was enough to get you in deep water. I remember mentioning it once on stage at the SLR Awards and actually getting heckled from the audience. But like it or not, we’re going to have to start re-incorporating DRS back into our vocabulary.
Yes, the first attempt at introducing a Deposit Return Scheme in Scotland was a shambles of epic proportions, about as popular as Margaret Thatcher’s similarly failed Poll Tax was. And the fallout continues. As I write this, an eight-day hearing is getting underway at the Court of Session in Edinburgh as Biffa seeks £166m in damages from the Scottish Government over the collapse of DRS.
But the fact remains that DRS 2.0 is looking far more likely to materialise. It’s possibly overstating it to say that it’s nailed on, but that’s not likely to be too far from the truth. Scheduled to launch in October 2027, this DRS is a different beast from the original. It will be (more or less) UK-wide, making it far easier to implement. It also benefits from being run by a credible administrator staffed by industry experts who have a deep understanding of retailers and producers and are shaping a scheme that works as well as possible.
No less critical is the fact that if DRS doesn’t come into force on time, producers will instead be forced to pay the EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) levy which comes into force in 2028 and is higher than the DRS levy. It’s worth noting that the biggest producers are actually the major supermarkets, so there’s a significant financial incentive for Tesco, Asda and the others to help get this thing over the line on time.
All of which explains why we’ve cast our eye over the water this issue to see how Ireland got on with their DRS. Yes, there clearly have been some teething problems but the numbers tell a compelling story: the recycling rate for containers jumped from 49% to 91% and the scheme has seen 1.6 billion containers recycled since launch in February 2024, around 798 million more containers recycled per year.
If I was a betting man, I’d say this DRS 2.0 is an odds-on favourite to happen – so the sooner we all start engaging and preparing the better.
Antony Begley, Publishing Director, SLR
We need to talk about DRS
For quite a while, even mentioning the acronym ‘DRS’ was enough to get you in deep water. I remember mentioning it once on stage at the SLR Awards and actually getting heckled from the audience. But like it or not, we’re going to have to start re-incorporating DRS back into our vocabulary.
Yes, the first attempt at introducing a Deposit Return Scheme in Scotland was a shambles of epic proportions, about as popular as Margaret Thatcher’s similarly failed Poll Tax was. And the fallout continues. As I write this, an eight-day hearing is getting underway at the Court of Session in Edinburgh as Biffa seeks £166m in damages from the Scottish Government over the collapse of DRS.
But the fact remains that DRS 2.0 is looking far more likely to materialise. It’s possibly overstating it to say that it’s nailed on, but that’s not likely to be too far from the truth. Scheduled to launch in October 2027, this DRS is a different beast from the original. It will be (more or less) UK-wide, making it far easier to implement. It also benefits from being run by a credible administrator staffed by industry experts who have a deep understanding of retailers and producers and are shaping a scheme that works as well as possible.
No less critical is the fact that if DRS doesn’t come into force on time, producers will instead be forced to pay the EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) levy which comes into force in 2028 and is higher than the DRS levy. It’s worth noting that the biggest producers are actually the major supermarkets, so there’s a significant financial incentive for Tesco, Asda and the others to help get this thing over the line on time.
All of which explains why we’ve cast our eye over the water this issue to see how Ireland got on with their DRS. Yes, there clearly have been some teething problems but the numbers tell a compelling story: the recycling rate for containers jumped from 49% to 91% and the scheme has seen 1.6 billion containers recycled since launch in February 2024, around 798 million more containers recycled per year.
If I was a betting man, I’d say this DRS 2.0 is an odds-on favourite to happen – so the sooner we all start engaging and preparing the better.
Antony Begley, Publishing Director, SLR
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A very rewarding evening