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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to include glass in the planned Deposit Return Scheme.

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.

In England and Northern Ireland, glass drinks bottles will be in scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging scheme as will all other types of glass packaging placed on the market in all nations. EPR will place recycling targets on producers in relation to all glass packaging and require relevant obligated producers to cover the costs of collecting and managing glass packaging arising in household waste and discarded in street bins managed by local authorities.