this has been a significant week for the UK’s deposit return scheme (DRS) and its administrator Exchange for Change. The release of the retailer handling fees was, as one source puts it, the moment it “all became real” and, as the Scotland experience proved, could have been the point where the wheels started to come off.
Instead, whisper it quietly, it looks more and more likely DRS will launch in the UK, if not by the October 2027 deadline, then pretty soon thereafter.
The reason is simple. Exchange for Change has learnt from the experience north of the border, consulting cleverly with retailers and suppliers and avoiding the hapless heavy hand of politicians, to stave off legal action at a stroke.
That, certainly for supporters of DRS, is the good news. The bad news is that the industry has a much bigger job to fix the rest of the mess that is the UK’s plastic and packaging policy, at a time when the tsunami of overlapping government regulation meets increased costs linked to the US-Iran war.
In recent weeks concerns over the return of inflation have seen government sources hint that ministers might axe the hated EPR packaging tax, even though such a crazy move would blast a £1.5bn-shaped hole in Treasury finances and leave the “producer pays” policy in disarray. It’s not going to happen.
We know this because it has appointed an industry body to help PackUK sort out the mess – but we are still no nearer to knowing how much power the PRO will get to sort out the incredible mess of local government recycling.
Meanwhile the deeply flawed plastic packaging tax (PPT) limps on, with suggestions that it too could be suspended having also cooled in recent days.
That’s not to mention the expected review over how to reform the fiendishly complicated PRN system, which has seen the industry and packaging compliance schemes at each others’ throats in recent weeks. If only the same common sense and practical negotiations, which have allowed DRS to recover from the Scottish disaster, could be recycled to fix this much wider packaging taxation minefield.
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