Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee 27 May 2025
The most substantive change is the removal of glass. We want recycling rates for glass to accelerate and improve. The Scottish Government, as has been well documented, wanted to introduce a scheme in 2024. It would have been up and running, I think, in March 2024. We have effectively lost a year of deposit return items being recycled, so that has had a material impact on our recycling targets in the past year.
The biggest difference is the exclusion of glass. That is why Wales has decided not to go forward with the regulations as we are. Its recycling rates are very good—they are the best in the UK. Wales wanted to include glass in order for the scheme to make a material difference to its recycling rates.
As you will remember, convener, the previous UK Government denied an exemption from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 to allow glass to be included in the Scottish scheme. Our view is that a deposit return scheme that deals with aluminium cans and plastic bottles but without glass is better than no scheme at all. It is expected that the implementation of a deposit return scheme will take 0.8 megatonnes of CO2 out of Scotland, and it will increase the recycling rate of those materials to about 76 per cent. There were different estimates for the previous regulations, which included glass. We are also working on implementing the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 and are working with local authorities on how we can have general improvement in recycling rates. A number of strategies are being taken forward.
There is no doubt that a UK-wide deposit return scheme, which we have signed up to in concert with the previous UK Government, the current UK Government and the Northern Ireland Government, will make a substantial difference to recycling rates. However, the impact will not just be on the recycling rates but on the amount of litter, as I mentioned in my statement. As you know, a lot of litter, particularly on our roadsides and in our coastal areas, is single-use drinks containers of the type that will be in the scope of the regulations. I am looking forward to a situation in which we no longer see cans and bottles littering our streets and our roadsides, because they have a material value associated with their return.