Shoppers 'to be charged 20p on plastic bottles & Metal Cans under return scheme

Yeah, don't understand the point in this for UK. We have had a recycle bin for, what 20 years now? Plastics and tins go in that and then get collected fortnightly to be, you know, recycled.

So, instead of that we would now encourage people to, in most cases, drive back to the shop or supermarket to recycle. Isn't that, with the environment in mind, slightly counter-productive?
 
mid_gen said:
You'll typically buy your drinks in crates, so they just take the crate back. If you've got loose random collection of pfand, you can just put them on the street if you can't be bothered to recycle them yourself, and let someone else do it.

Wine bottles etc just go in bottle banks. You're usually not more than a couple hundred metres from one, same with your cardboard.

You still have kerbside recycling, three bins, organic waste, trash, and other plastic/metal recycling.
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That makes things better, recycling places here are way more than 200m apart though, I only know of one in my entire side of the city, and have never seen any in small villages.

So yes in the UK we need much more infrastructure and probably combined with pickup services.

Other points also raised where many people already recycle, those people especially are been penalised as they now need to recycle a less convenient way or pay the stealth tax, I seen someone mention they dont consider it a tax if none of it goes to the gov, its still a tax in my eyes either way.
This is a huge money maker for whoever is collecting the coin, the amount of cans and bottled drinks been sold must be huge.
 
There are multiple things with this.

If you read the article, and if you believe it, the returns will only be done at supermarkets. They will be done at 'reverse' vending machines.

The deposit would be paid back when empties are returned to a network of ‘reverse vending machines’ in supermarkets across the country.
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So, you force people to make a, sometimes, special journey to a supermarket. I can't remember the last time I went in a supermarket. All our weekly food shop is done online. So, for us this would be a waste of a journey and impact the environment.

Also, we are all charged already for recycling. It is part of the council tax. We don't get it for free. So, whatever way you want to look at it we will be charged twice for the same thing. If we didn't have council's recycling I could understand it, but I genuinely don't see the logic in this idea.
 
a1ex2001 said:
It does cost me something as I have to separate and store my rubbish before making a special trip to claim my refund, if there are to be more recycling points this will cost the consumer money, if the supermarkets have to collect the recycling with home deliveries this will cost the consumer more money. If we were all still going to super markets for a weekly shop then I could understand it but it just feels like such a backwards step when we should be doing something forward thinking.
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Why are you making a "special trip"? you go to the shops, there will be reverse vending machines all over the place including your local supermarkets such as Tesco, JS, Aldi, etc. you put the bottles in the machine it gives you cash.

All costs of the scheme are expected to be covered by the deposits charged on products that are never returned.

The supermarkets collecting from homes because of online deliveries are not allowed to charge the customers but instead charge the scheme.

The 5p charge on plastic bags has proved that people respond to even small costs.

Will people still create litter? Yes, of course but reduced.

Will people collect litter for the 20p deposits? Yes, of course.

Will those two things result in less litter and more recycling? Yes, definitely.
 
davejh666 said:
There are multiple things with this.

If you read the article, and if you believe it, the returns will only be done at supermarkets. They will be done at 'reverse' vending machines.

So, you force people to make a, sometimes, special journey to a supermarket. I can't remember the last time I went in a supermarket. All our weekly food shop is done online. So, for us this would be a waste of a journey and impact the environment.

Also, we are all charged already for recycling. It is part of the council tax. We don't get it for free. So, whatever way you want to look at it we will be charged twice for the same thing. If we didn't have council's recycling I could understand it, but I genuinely don't see the logic in this idea.
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No, no-one is forced to make a special journey anywhere.

If you buy online, your retailer is obliged to collect their products from your home. Within a reasonable time. They probably can't use the existing vans as part of delivery journeys because of health and safety but they will collect from you - exact details are not yet known, there will likely be companies that step up to do this on behalf of the online retailers but we simply don't know yet.
 
MikeTimbers said:
No, no-one is forced to make a special journey anywhere.

If you buy online, your retailer is obliged to collect their products from your home. Within a reasonable time. They probably can't use the existing vans as part of delivery journeys because of health and safety but they will collect from you - exact details are not yet known, there will likely be companies that step up to do this on behalf of the online retailers but we simply don't know yet.
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Where does it say that in that article? The article the OP posted I have just literally quoted how they have said the returns will work:

The deposit would be paid back when empties are returned to a network of ‘reverse vending machines’ in supermarkets across the country.
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Have you got a link to anywhere where it says that the retailer is obliged to collect this recycling from your home?
 
MikeTimbers said:
No, no-one is forced to make a special journey anywhere.

If you buy online, your retailer is obliged to collect their products from your home. Within a reasonable time. They probably can't use the existing vans as part of delivery journeys because of health and safety but they will collect from you - exact details are not yet known, there will likely be companies that step up to do this on behalf of the online retailers but we simply don't know yet.
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Surely that will increase prices over all though, as such companies still need to be paid to collect.

I would be very surprised if the money made from people not returning covered all these costs. And if the scheme takes off as intended, then where is the money going to come from?
 
krooton said:
Surely that will increase prices over all though, as such companies still need to be paid to collect.

I would be very surprised if the money made from people not returning covered all these costs. And if the scheme takes off as intended, then where is the money going to come from?
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From the scheme 20 pence per can/bottle is absolutely huge, millions consumed per year.
 
chrcoluk said:
From the scheme 20 pence per can/bottle is absolutely huge, millions consumed per year.
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It is. But if the supermarkets have to collect these recycles from peoples houses - where does the money come for that from? I would guess that if they start collecting they will charge for it the same way they charge for deliveries. Then it makes the whole 20p back when you return the item nonsense. No supermarket is going to collect for free, why would they? Why would a business 'loose' money through no fault of their own.
 
davejh666 said:
It is. But if the supermarkets have to collect these recycles from peoples houses - where does the money come for that from? I would guess that if they start collecting they will charge for it the same way they charge for deliveries. Then it makes the whole 20p back when you return the item nonsense. No supermarket is going to collect for free, why would they? Why would a business 'loose' money through no fault of their own.
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You either collect it or dont charge, asking for a centralised policy is nonsense, its unreasonable to expect people to go to supermarkets for this.

The money comes from those who dont bother with the recycling and just soak up the costs, there will be plenty. I expect this will be very profitable not the other way round.

But if they do charge "on top" of the 20p tax, then I agree its nonsensical, I am expecting this to be funded from the announced tax.
 
chrcoluk said:
You either collect it or dont charge, asking for a centralised policy is nonsense, its unreasonable to expect people to go to supermarkets for this.

The money comes from those who dont bother with the recycling and just soak up the costs, there will be plenty. I expect this will be very profitable not the other way round.

But if they do charge "on top" of the 20p tax, then I agree its nonsensical, I am expecting this to be funded from the announced tax.
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I don't agree with them not charging. What I mean is if they collect they will charge, imo. You could argue it is nonsense them charging me £4 to deliver my weekly shopping now when we spend £230 per week on average. They must make a lot of money out of just my shopping bill - why do they need to charge me a delivery fee too? Because they are a business and they ain't gonna give anything away free.

I just think the whole scheme is stupid. We have a 'working' system with recycling collected weekly/fortnightly. Make sure people use it. Put up more recycling bins in public spaces - parks etc. Where I live I have never seen a recycle bin out in public spaces such as parks etc. People are then left with two 'responsible' options: take their rubbish home to recycle or use the normal bin. Give them the chance to use recycling facilities at the public space.
 
davejh666 said:
I don't agree with them not charging. What I mean is if they collect they will charge, imo. You could argue it is nonsense them charging me £4 to deliver my weekly shopping now when we spend £230 per week on average. They must make a lot of money out of just my shopping bill - why do they need to charge me a delivery fee too? Because they are a business and they ain't gonna give anything away free.

I just think the whole scheme is stupid. We have a 'working' system with recycling collected weekly/fortnightly. Make sure people use it. Put up more recycling bins in public spaces - parks etc. Where I live I have never seen a recycle bin out in public spaces such as parks etc. People are then left with two 'responsible' options: take their rubbish home to recycle or use the normal bin. Give them the chance to use recycling facilities at the public space.
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I agree its an ill thought out scheme, it seems to be pandering to those who are obsessed with recycling every little last thing and also at the same time an opportunity to make money.

But my belief is if they are going to launch the scheme then collection has to be done using the 20p tax as funding it, if you charging for the collection then it means its impossible to not pay the tax without going to the supermarket which is nonsense.
 
Instead of reading a crappy article, read the law.

Also, as I am currently advising a UK retailer on what they will need to do for DRS in Scotland, you can take what I say as what is happening.
 
MikeTimbers said:
Instead of reading a crappy article, read the law.

Also, as I am currently advising a UK retailer on what they will need to do for DRS in Scotland, you can take what I say as what is happening.
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There is no law. I take it you mean consumer contracts regulations which mean that the seller has to collect the goods without charge if they have delivered them to your home?

This won't be covered by that. You will have used the 'goods'. You are now not asking them to collect the goods but the packaging which is not covered under any law, as far as I am aware, unless you can again link to it? Sorry, but not just going to
take what I say as what is happening
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I think a good example of what existing law requires is with plastic bags.

Before covid some retailers who offered plastic bags also offered to pick them up and give a refund, it was never all of them though, and since covid this practice seems to have stopped, this suggests to me there is no existing law that requires them to do it.
 
Angilion said:
As for littering, people do that because they don't give a crap. Making some of the litter worth 20p won't change that. Fining some people £50 for littering might change that.
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I dunno, in countries where people can get paid for returning cans/bottles you'll find hobos etc.. collecting them where they can. And 20p per can/bottle because of a deposit scheme is quite a decent rate! We already have fines for littering in plenty of places in the UK. Since this is a deposit scheme then it isn't really penalising people beyond some minor inconvenience of bringing (some of) your recycling to the shops next time you go there rather than disposing of it at home.

chaparral said:
Does anyone know if this means if you buy a pack of 4+ bottles or 6+ metal cans of drink there be a 20p extra charge for each can/bottle in the pack ?

Shoppers 'to be charged 20p on plastic bottles under return scheme' (msn.com)


That going be £4.80 extra for a 24 pack of coke cola :eek::(


And what about all the other stuff you need that comes in plastic bottles..
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The thing is you don't need this stuff... it's only a deposit though so meh... really I think they ought to ramp up the sugar tax a bit further or indeed make it a bit more nuanced - hit stuff that has no other (or very limited) nutritional value etc...
 
The surgery tax is a bit of a strange one because it doesn’t target milk or fruit based drinks despite them being some of the worst out there in terms of sugar and hidden calories.

To me there is very little difference between a sweetened milkshake or an ‘iced coffee’ than coke. Both are just full of sugar and have very little in the way of nutritional value. Fruit juice and smoothies should probably be put in that camp as well. While they have some nutritional benefits, it’s so easy to massively over consume those and they have a huge number of calories.
 
MikeTimbers said:
They probably can't use the existing vans as part of delivery journeys because of health and safety but they will collect from you
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So the council comes around in their vehicle to collect half the recyclables, then Tesco sends around their vehicle to collect the other half, but after they've counted every bottle and every can first of course.

Really is an inefficient way of doing things. I'd rather not be taxed further and have the council collect it all as they are doing at the moment.
 
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