A dozen Welsh food and drink businesses have urged the devolved government to avoid chaos by adopting the same deposit return scheme (DRS) as the rest of the UK.
Exchange for Change, an industry-led not-for-profit, is already contracted to run the schemes in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland but Wales is yet to announce an operator. Unlike schemes launching in other parts of the UK, Wales also plans to include glass.
This week, 12 companies including Radnor Hills and Tiny Rebel wrote to the Welsh government warning of the perils of diverging from the rest of the UK.
“Going it alone would create significant challenges for our businesses and reduce choice for Welsh consumers,” they wrote.
They argued the inclusion of glass could add around 50p to the cost of some bottles as it will require dedicated collection infrastructure and more expensive reverse vending machines.
“With just 15 months until the DRS across the rest of the UK goes live in October 2027, there is no time left to deliver a scheme that is materially different in Wales,” the letter reads.
Drinks industry bosses met Plaid Cymru’s Llyr Gruffydd, cabinet minister for rural resilience and sustainability, earlier this month to discuss a compromise deal which would provide a limited number of glass return points rather than universal coverage. The plan was rejected by the last government.
One drinks industry source told The Grocer: “I got the sense there was a pragmatism that didn’t exist under the previous administration.”
Campaigners have accused the drinks industry of destabilising the Welsh DRS rollout and called on the Welsh government to press ahead with the plans.
“The reality is, if you look at any deposit return scheme as it’s being rolled out in all of the 40-plus nations that it’s currently running in, it’s the same arguments that come every single time from the industry,” Owen Derbyshire from Keep Wales Tidy told the BBC this week.
“And the truth is, when they’re established, when they’re set up, when they’re running, none of those stories, those accusations, ever come to light.”
Derbyshire accused the industry of “misinformation [and] disinformation, which absolutely doesn’t survive contact with any of the international evidence we’ve seen”.
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