Scotland's Deposit Return Scheme: why has an idea which worked well for decades become so complicated? – Ian Swanson

Getting money back on an empty bottle should not become a constitutional crisis

It used to be so simple. Once you’d finished your bottle of lemonade, you took the empty back to the shop and got a halfpenny – or sixpence or 10p – in return. The idea of a deposit refund on glass bottles can apparently be traced back to 1905 and it lasted right through to the 1980s.

Children loved getting a few extra coins to spend on sweets and it was a real bonus if you found an empty bottle washed up on the beach on holiday. Shopkeepers would store the bottles in crates and they would be collected when the next delivery of lemonade came in. The system helped prevent litter and encouraged recycling habits at an early age. It only faded away with the increased use of cans and plastic bottles.

But Scotland’s 21st-century attempt to revive the refundable deposit has caused huge controversy and led to a new constitutional battle. The Scottish Government’s deposit return scheme (DRS), brought forward by the SNP and the Greens, would include steel and aluminium cans and plastic bottles, as well as glass ones, all carrying a 20p deposit which could later be reclaimed in shops or at reverse-vending machines.

Under the scheme, shoppers will return bottles and cans in a reverse-vending machine.

Businesses have objected from the start about an extra cost burden at a time when they are already struggling. And as the scheme was developed, they complained about confusion and a lack of detailed information on how it would work. During the SNP leadership contest, former Finance Secretary Kate Forbes went as far as warning the scheme would cause “economic carnage”.

First Minister Humza Yousaf has delayed the scheme’s introduction until March 2024. But now the UK Government – which needs to grant an exemption from the Internal Market Act to allow it to proceed – has said it can only go ahead if glass is excluded and the whole scheme is then brought into line with a similar scheme for the rest of the UK, due to start in 2025.

It seems clear the DRS has been badly handled – not keeping the industry on board, and choosing to set up a private not-for-profit company to run it, with a chief executive reportedly on a £300,000 salary and beyond the reach of freedom of information laws. But the UK’s intervention adds to the problem rather than resolving it.

Businesses have invested a lot of money in preparing for the scheme. It has been set up with glass included and Lorna Slater, the Green minister in charge of it, has said the biggest benefits, economically, financially and environmentally, are from including glass. She also says that, until January, the UK also planned to include glass in its scheme.

The UK stands accused, once again, of undermining devolution and seeking to impose its own preferences in an area which clearly falls under Holyrood’s responsibility. The Scottish Government is now deciding whether or not its scheme is still viable if it has to comply with the UK’s conditions. And businesses which would operate the DRS if it goes ahead are left with even more uncertainty.

Many people, watching the squabbling, will wonder why such a simple idea which worked well for so long has become so complicated. Getting money back on an empty bottle should not become a constitutional crisis.