'Politics smashed Scotland's deposit return scheme'

Politics got involved as Scottish and UK government didn't work in partnership, causing the last-minute debacle and henceforth the delay of Scotland’s deposit return scheme, retailer Mo Razzaq has said.

The Scottish government on Wednesday (7) delayed the introduction of its planned deposit return scheme until at least October 2025, after the UK Government blocked the inclusion of glass in the scheme. The delay is seen as a step to work towards the launch of interoperable schemes across the UK in October 2025.

“There are concerns about communication, and the two governments should be more in partnership with detail,” Razzaq told Asian Trader.

"Earlier there were no concerns raised by the Westminster Government. And all of a sudden, they decided to take glass out of the equation altogether! What we are now seeing is that politics got involved in this which clearly did not help at all.”

Razzaq, who is also Fed’s national deputy vice president, added that the delay of more than two years has caused inconvenience to retailers who otherwise took “government’s words in good faith” and invested in reverse vending machines.

“A lot of us took the government’s words in good faith and made required arrangements. Retailers are expecting Scottish government to pay them for their investment in reverse vending machines as we were told repeatedly that scheme will be going ahead. And now it is not for more than two years!"

The UK Government had granted the Scottish Government a limited exemption from the Internal Market Act to introduce a deposit return scheme, but with the stipulation that glass cannot be included in the scheme. The latest DRS proposals for England and Northern Ireland, due to be introduced in 2025, do not include glass.

“Broken bottles are more dangerous than discarded cans and plastics. It is trickier to handle glass as compared to plastic bottles and cans but we don't think the glass is problematic at all. It too needs to be dealt with. And that’s why I think what's happened is quite disappointing.

“The Westminster government don't agree that glass should be included. But they have not given any answers too to what they're going to do with glass- which is even more disappointing. If you're going to take glass out of the scheme, also inform what are you going to do with glass.”

In the light of fast-paced back-to-back rollercoaster developments in DRS, retailers were dealing with two major roadblocks- uncertainty and concern- from some time, Razzaq said.

“In business, you can't have uncertainty and concern. You need to have clear goals and clear guidelines. And that's not been the case in deposit return schemes. In fact, for some of us, yesterday’s announcement of delays comes as a bit of relief- as retailers got clear guidance and enough time to sort everything out.”

October 2025 seems far as of now, but Razzaq feels that England needs to speed up if they want to meet the deadline.

“We were at the Defra meeting yesterday in London, where it was pointed out that unless they speed up, it will be difficult to meet October 2025 deadline. They are expecting a lot of work to be done in a very short space of time.

"There are many learning from Scottish scheme showing there is a lot of work to be done. A company that will run the deposit return scheme in England has not signed off yet and is only going to be nominated next year. With that timeline, that company will have just over a year to set up the scheme and I think that that's not long enough.

“The company will need much more time as it needs to get things streamlined under regulations. We also got a general election next year. So like I said, there's a lot of work to be done in a very less time,” he concluded.