OPINION: ‘Glass must be kept out of the future DRS’

Dave Dalton, the chief executive of British Glass, explains why he feels glass should be excluded from any future Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), and shares new polling on the topic.

OPINION: For many months, the glass industry has been calling on the Government to implement a clear and consistent collection system for household waste.

Whilst this issue does not always receive the public profile it deserves, it is a crucial piece of the jigsaw in achieving the UK’s vast environmental ambitions to improve recycling rates, reduce carbon emissions, and tackle plastic pollution. All things which the UK public care passionately about.

With this in mind, what consumers want to see from a future recycling system must be central to the Government’s planning as, ultimately, the general public will be the ones actually using the system, and determining recycling rates in the UK. If the system is too complicated and difficult to understand, this could have a detrimental impact on recycling, so we must make sure consumer opinions are taken into account.

International evidence

One core element of the Government’s proposals to update the waste and recycling system in the UK is the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), which would mean consumers paying a deposit on drinks containers until they are returned via a reverse vending machine.

There is international evidence to show that such a scheme can work for certain materials – however, the evidence also shows that this would be the wrong solution for glass bottles. It would perversely lead to an increase in carbon emissions and drive-up plastic consumption whilst also over-complicating the recycling system by having some glass packaging collected at the kerbside via local authorities, and other glass containers via a DRS.

But what do British citizens want to see? Recent YouGov polling, commissioned by British Glass, highlights the will of consumers to keep glass recycling kerbside, rather than in a DRS.

In fact, according to the survey results, over 70% of people are already satisfied with the current collection system for glass packaging and nearly half want to recycle their glass packaging through kerbside collections at their doorstep, compared to 19% who would prefer to recycle glass bottles via a deposit return scheme and 27% who would prefer a mix of both.

Interestingly, every single region in Great Britain would prefer to recycle their glass through kerbside recycling, with the strongest support in rural areas including Wales and the South West, where people may have to travel further to claim their deposit back.

Every region in Great Britain would prefer to recycle their glass at the kerbside

Reinforcing evidence from Finland and Croatia that including glass in a DRS will encourage consumers to switch to plastic packaging, the polling shows that 45% of people are likely to buy large, plastic bottles with smaller deposits, rather than multiple, smaller glass bottles – thus driving up the UK’s plastic consumption. Yet when it comes to environmental issues, the majority of the public cares most about reducing plastic consumption (34%) and reducing carbon emissions (26%).

Consistent collections

British Glass understands the crucial role of consumers in realising our industry ambition of reaching a 90% glass collection rate by 2030. So, it’s of real concern to see that 66% of adults have either never heard of DRS, or do not know much about the scheme.

This doesn’t mean people don’t want to recycle – in actual fact, 90% of adults already recycle most of the time or more. But introducing a complicated, new system for just some glass packaging, when kerbside glass recycling is already achieving a 76% recycling rate, is not the answer.

The glass industry firmly believes that, in order to secure the UK’s environmental ambitions to increase recycling rates, decrease carbon emissions, and reduce plastic pollution, glass must be kept out of the future DRS. And this new YouGov data provides further evidence to show that keeping glass recycling at the kerbside, within an improved and consistent collection system and Extended Producer Responsibility, is what consumers also want to see.

With the Government’s response to the regulatory consultation on the design of a DRS due to be published imminently, it’s time for DEFRA to sit up and listen to what recycling users want to see from the system they will be using every day for years to come. We need to get it right now, and keep glass out of a DRS.