Chamber and committees

Zero Waste Scotland are currently working with eight local authorities to assess the impact of deposit return on their waste collection services. Work with the remaining 24 local authorities is expected to follow. It is intended that the outputs from this work will be used to inform discussion about the provision of support for any future service planning and delivery by local authorities.

No local authorities have approached Zero Waste Scotland for support in implementing waste collection service changes as a result of the introduction of a deposit return scheme.

The First Minister’s Advisory Group on Human Rights Leadership reported in December 2018. It recommended a new statutory human rights framework for Scotland, including a right to a healthy environment.

The new National Taskforce will now take forward the Group’s principal recommendations, and will be co-chaired by myself and Professor Alan Miller. Its formal remit and membership will be announced in due course.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24293 on 1 August 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

We are working with local authorities to understand fully and to mitigate potential impacts on kerbside collection services. The choice of a 20p deposit level is intended to provide a strong incentive to return containers through the DRS system. It is likely that a percentage of containers will also be recycled through kerbside collections and will be captured as part of wider statistics on recycling of household waste.

The choice of a return to retail model which maximises accessibility is intended to minimise any risk of variation by geography or demography. The scheme has been carefully designed to ensure that those purchasing their containers can return them easily, no matter their circumstances.

The modelling was done at a national level and is based on information on performance of other international schemes. The choice of a return to retail model which maximises accessibility is intended to minimise any risk of variation by geography or demography.

The approach of advertising the deposit price separately has been identified as best practice from extensive evidence gathering in countries with well-established deposit return schemes as well as experience from other policies such as the single use carrier bags charge.

As noted in the previous response, the financial liability for the scheme will fall on drinks producers. This will be reflected in the regulatory approach.

This is an on-going process with local authorities and part of much wider on-going engagement over waste, therefore there is no anticipated end date.