Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to Impact Assessment on introducing a deposit return scheme, published on 24 February 2021, if her Department will re-evaluate the findings published in that Assessment on net benefits of (a) a scheme that excludes glass and (b) an all-in scheme.

A Final Impact Assessment will be published in alignment with the next phase of the DRS work in order to allow us to update the analysis to accurately reflect what is set out in the government response with the most recent data available.

Glass bottles will not be captured by DRS in England and Northern Ireland as the respective governments believe the addition of glass will add additional complexity and challenges to delivery of DRS in particular to the hospitality and retail sectors, as well as additional consumer inconvenience. Given concerns raised on managing glass in a DRS, delivery of the scheme will focus on plastic bottles and aluminium/steel cans in England and Northern Ireland.

Whilst not in scope of the DRS in England and Northern Ireland, glass drinks bottles will be covered by the Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging scheme in both nations, which will place targets on producers in relation to glass recycling. The proposed recycling target for glass packaging under EPR is 83% by 2030.