DRS scheme - have they thought this out?
Discussion
The row is about glass bottles but……
Read the details of how the scheme is supposed to work and she pointed to 2 multipacks of water and saiid “so 20p on each bottle”
What will happen:-
- Folks will continue to buy in bulk from supermarkets, Costco etc.
- Empties will be returned to the nearest convenience store
- The convenience stores will need large areas to store the empties, staff to count them in and out etc
I can see pubs/convenience stores dropping any product that falls within the scheme to avoid having to take returns
I can also see why England doesn’t want to include glass as most licensed premises use glass and have their own system and won’t want all comers coming in with a carrier bag full of empties when they are busy.
I remember when drinks suppliers ran their own deposit schemes on glass bottles, why can’t they just make that mandatory.
Of course the real agenda is to stop us buying bottled drinks.
Read the details of how the scheme is supposed to work and she pointed to 2 multipacks of water and saiid “so 20p on each bottle”
What will happen:-
- Folks will continue to buy in bulk from supermarkets, Costco etc.
- Empties will be returned to the nearest convenience store
- The convenience stores will need large areas to store the empties, staff to count them in and out etc
I can see pubs/convenience stores dropping any product that falls within the scheme to avoid having to take returns
I can also see why England doesn’t want to include glass as most licensed premises use glass and have their own system and won’t want all comers coming in with a carrier bag full of empties when they are busy.
I remember when drinks suppliers ran their own deposit schemes on glass bottles, why can’t they just make that mandatory.
Of course the real agenda is to stop us buying bottled drinks.
Randy Winkman said:
I would assume (hope anyway) that those who devised the scheme looked at what was done in other countries and learned from that what works best.
English/UK scheme: doesn’t look like itScottish scheme: doesn’t look like it either but it originally included glass, has been rushed in to make it stand out, is already a costly disaster.
I’ve watched some info on other countries systems, they’ve not implemented any of the sensible stuff as far as I can see.
emicen said:
Randy Winkman said:
I would assume (hope anyway) that those who devised the scheme looked at what was done in other countries and learned from that what works best.
English/UK scheme: doesn’t look like itScottish scheme: doesn’t look like it either but it originally included glass, has been rushed in to make it stand out, is already a costly disaster.
I’ve watched some info on other countries systems, they’ve not implemented any of the sensible stuff as far as I can see.
The DRS seems to be a solution waiting for a problem!
Recycling rates are pretty good, especially for plastic bottles and metal cans.
- The big issue with the Scottish version is that the operators of the scheme make their profit from the "lost" deposits. So they actually have a perverse incentive to minimise returns! If every bottle and can got returned they would end up bankrupt...
- The bottles and cans are valuable and can be re-sold for recycling - this partly offsets the cost of councils doing their kerbside recycling and waste collection! They'll still have to collect the rest but as they are losing the more profitable materials the net cost will be higher.
Arguably, the deposit should be on the things that are the hardest to recycle and need specialist facilities, like crisp packets and plastic film...
Recycling rates are pretty good, especially for plastic bottles and metal cans.
- The big issue with the Scottish version is that the operators of the scheme make their profit from the "lost" deposits. So they actually have a perverse incentive to minimise returns! If every bottle and can got returned they would end up bankrupt...
- The bottles and cans are valuable and can be re-sold for recycling - this partly offsets the cost of councils doing their kerbside recycling and waste collection! They'll still have to collect the rest but as they are losing the more profitable materials the net cost will be higher.
Arguably, the deposit should be on the things that are the hardest to recycle and need specialist facilities, like crisp packets and plastic film...
Plymo said:
The DRS seems to be a solution waiting for a problem!
Recycling rates are pretty good, especially for plastic bottles and metal cans.
Recycling - yes - but the glass gets melted down, not that environmentally friendly.Recycling rates are pretty good, especially for plastic bottles and metal cans.
What we need to start doing is reusing bottles more, just as we used to do with milk bottles.
Currently any plastic bottles we use at home end up in our recycling and are collected. If each one is now ‘worth’ 20p surely these collection places will start receiving a huge amount of bottles that would have been recycled anyway, along with the environmental impact that that involves.
Are there any stats of what % of plastic bottles that are disposed of in public waste bins, litter etc bs domestically?
Are there any stats of what % of plastic bottles that are disposed of in public waste bins, litter etc bs domestically?
IJWS15 said:
What will happen:-
- Folks will continue to buy in bulk from supermarkets, Costco etc.
We get deliveries from nearest supermarket (68 miles away). Haven't driven to the store for over a decade.
- Empties will be returned to the nearest convenience store
Nearest convenience store is 17 miles away. Visit, maybe once a year (Village shop doesn't count!)
- The convenience stores will need large areas to store the empties, staff to count them in and out etc
They have no large areas to store anything, so just won't do it.
Like so many policies, they are made by people in cities who have no idea what it's like to live in a remote area.
- Folks will continue to buy in bulk from supermarkets, Costco etc.
We get deliveries from nearest supermarket (68 miles away). Haven't driven to the store for over a decade.
- Empties will be returned to the nearest convenience store
Nearest convenience store is 17 miles away. Visit, maybe once a year (Village shop doesn't count!)
- The convenience stores will need large areas to store the empties, staff to count them in and out etc
They have no large areas to store anything, so just won't do it.
Like so many policies, they are made by people in cities who have no idea what it's like to live in a remote area.
Edited by GetCarter on Sunday 4th June 11:10
steveo3002 said:
guess they will hope you hand over the 20p and bin the bottles anyway , then like the carrier bags it will be triple that in a couple of years
The difference is that you can’t give the bags back and get your money back. Think you do with Ocado and we always give those back.My children would be all over it if they could get some extra pocket money by taking a few bits of plastic back to the shop.
Randy Winkman said:
emicen said:
Randy Winkman said:
I would assume (hope anyway) that those who devised the scheme looked at what was done in other countries and learned from that what works best.
English/UK scheme: doesn’t look like itScottish scheme: doesn’t look like it either but it originally included glass, has been rushed in to make it stand out, is already a costly disaster.
I’ve watched some info on other countries systems, they’ve not implemented any of the sensible stuff as far as I can see.
It’s been brought in quicker than they could build a ferry, with the sole impetus in doing so being to get it in before the English, so they can Grand stand about it.
From what I remember, the Scottish scheme deliberately didn’t seek out what other successful countries were doing, and also the successful schemes in Scandinavia don’t include glass either for various business and consumer-behaviour reasons.
It would be interesting to see what other recycling schemes were in place when successful DRS schemes were launched in other countries, some as much as a few decades ago, I bet it wasn’t the comprehensive kerbside collection that the UK has now.
And yes I will pretty much stop buying drinks while I’m out and about if they have a 20p deposit that takes effort to retrieve and may get rejected by a machine if they’re damaged, so take that, the drinks industry.
It would be interesting to see what other recycling schemes were in place when successful DRS schemes were launched in other countries, some as much as a few decades ago, I bet it wasn’t the comprehensive kerbside collection that the UK has now.
And yes I will pretty much stop buying drinks while I’m out and about if they have a 20p deposit that takes effort to retrieve and may get rejected by a machine if they’re damaged, so take that, the drinks industry.
I doubt 20p will stop the litterbugs who chuck away bottles onto the floor once they've drunk from them.
RDMcG said:
Where I live in Canada there are lots of people on bikes who tour the area looking for recyclables with deposits and collect them . I leave all deposit containers on the back step and they are gone in a day. Widely done,the collectors make some money and the objective is achieved.
I wouldn't want anyone rummaging around in my recycling bins so I'd be against this proposal for that reason alone.ScotHill said:
From what I remember, the Scottish scheme deliberately didn’t seek out what other successful countries were doing, and also the successful schemes in Scandinavia don’t include glass either for various business and consumer-behaviour reasons.
It would be interesting to see what other recycling schemes were in place when successful DRS schemes were launched in other countries, some as much as a few decades ago, I bet it wasn’t the comprehensive kerbside collection that the UK has now.
And yes I will pretty much stop buying drinks while I’m out and about if they have a 20p deposit that takes effort to retrieve and may get rejected by a machine if they’re damaged, so take that, the drinks industry.
Yep, in Sweden you pay the deposit and then get it back - I used to save up cans for a week and then go to my local supermarket on a Sunday morning when it was quiet and feed them all in to the machine, get a voucher and then do some shopping and it takes it off the balance. It just pushes the initial purchase price up and then you’re kept in a perpetual cycle but when I moved back to the UK I couldn’t believe how many cans I saw littered, there were basically none where I lived in Sweden.It would be interesting to see what other recycling schemes were in place when successful DRS schemes were launched in other countries, some as much as a few decades ago, I bet it wasn’t the comprehensive kerbside collection that the UK has now.
And yes I will pretty much stop buying drinks while I’m out and about if they have a 20p deposit that takes effort to retrieve and may get rejected by a machine if they’re damaged, so take that, the drinks industry.
So basically it’s an answer to a problem that doesn’t exist. Most items are currently recycled either at home or out and about as most places now have separate bins which should be mandatory. It will be a very expensive and complicated scheme that doesn’t work and we continue our race to the bottom just to be ‘seen to be doing something’ to appease some shouty loons.
Presumably councils will ask everyone to stop putting bottles that qualify for the scheme in the normal recycling. If they don’t then most, me included will just chuck everything in together (I’m not messing about with it for what would be perhaps a £ a week) and entrepreneurial types will have rummage through before collection by the actual binmen arrive. I wouldn’t object to this but you just know they won’t do it tidily (the binmen can’t seem to manage this already) and the collections will be refused
Meanwhile my £1 a weeks worth will end up as landfill. Unless 2 litre plastic milk bottles count, we get through loads of those
Meanwhile my £1 a weeks worth will end up as landfill. Unless 2 litre plastic milk bottles count, we get through loads of those
steveo3002 said:
guess they will hope you hand over the 20p and bin the bottles anyway , then like the carrier bags it will be triple that in a couple of years
Ah you mean the increase from 5p to 30p. Forgot my bags the other day and nearly fell over when I realised they wanted 30p each. Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff