Miles Beale, Chief Executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, said:
“The wine and spirit industry welcomes this consultation. The WSTA is committed to helping its members do all they can to reduce waste and improve packaging recycling. Its members will play a full part in this consultation to help provide Government with the best industry knowledge to make this recycling initiative both efficient and effective.
The WSTA has consistently expressed doubts that DRS for glass is the best and most cost-effective mechanism to improve packaging recycling. We are therefore pleased to see that the UK Government has been listening and may consider taking larger bottles out of scope. Including all glass in a deposit return scheme is likely to encourage the use of more polluting plastic packaging. This seems crazy when the evidence shows that, for larger glass bottles, kerbside recycling achieves a much higher collection rate. We should learn from the top recycling nations in Europe who have found more environmentally friendly and efficient ways of collecting and recycling packaging, without the including glass in a DRS.
We are pleased that the UK Government recognises the complexities of introducing DRS and appreciates that changes need to be evidenced based, something that the Scottish Government has now begun to recognise, prompting an inevitable – but welcome – delay to their DRS start date.”
