Local MSP Brian Whittle has hit out at First Minister Nicola Sturgeon over the lack of detail about how Scotland’s proposed Deposit Return Scheme will work.
The scheme, which would place a levy of 20p on all glass, metal and plastic drinks containers, has been subject to a series of delays with its roll-out now expected in August next year. Brian has criticised the Scottish Government for still being unable to give businesses and the public even basic details about how the scheme will work.
Plans to introduce so-called “reverse vending machines”, where the public can take their containers to get their deposit refunded, have been announced but there’s little detail about how the machines will work in practice and concerns about how far people living in more rural areas might have to travel to get to one.
The Welsh Government recently completed a pilot scheme that would allow people to recover their deposit through household recycling bin collection but the Scottish Government have refused to commit to even running a similar pilot here.
The Scottish Government have also come in for criticism about a lack of transparency after they opted to create a private company to manage the scheme, making it harder for parliament to scrutinise and exempting it from Freedom of Information legislation.
Brian, the Scottish Conservatives’ Environment Spokesperson has accused the First Minister of prioritising being the first part of the UK to have a Deposit Return Scheme over having one that works.
Brian Whittle MSP said:
“A practical, well thought out deposit return scheme could be a useful tool to boost recycling rates and save valuable resources, but the Scottish Government are getting this wrong.
They’ve been so fixated on having the first scheme in the UK that they’ve failed to answer basic questions about how it will work for businesses and consumers.
When councils across Scotland have effective kerbside recycling schemes in place, it makes no sense to force the public to have to take their drinks containers back to reverse vending machines in shops to get their deposit back. Especially if there’s a way to achieve the same result using existing recycling infrastructure.
The SNP should recognise that getting this scheme right is more important than winning some petty imagined race against the other nations of the UK. An ill-thought out mess of a scheme is the worst possible outcome, but that’s exactly what the SNP look set to deliver.”
