A deposit return scheme (DRS) will not be in
place in England, Wales and Northern Ireland until late 2024 at the
earliest – six years after it was announced by Government as
a key environmental policy. Instead a second consultation was
announced in March 2021 “to explore further what the
continued appetite is for a deposit return scheme in a
‘post-Covid' context“.
A DRS was first announced in 2018 by the then Environment
Secretary to cut the litter polluting the land and sea by returning
a small cash sum to consumers who return their bottles and cans. It
came after years of campaigning by environmental groups.
Government's manifesto promise in 2019 was to introduce a
deposit return scheme to incentivise people to recycle plastic and
glass and the first consultation was met with a high level of
support for the scheme. But after years of discussions the new
consultation document published by the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs, showed that Government
